There seems to be a penchant these days for some atheists and secularists to tell us how we need to replace religion with secular alternatives. Philip Kitcher wrote a pretty good book about it, Life After Faith: The Case for Secular Humanism, but there are others who argue in a more annoying fashion, viz., Alain de Botton.
My response to most of this palaver that if we finally manage to dislodge religion from the American consciousness, people will find their own satisfying ways to make their lives. Do we need “Sunday Sermons”? Well, maybe for the recently-converted who simply can’t do without some group activity on Sundays, or for the lonely people who need to find a coterie of like-minded people. But they don’t have these things in those Northern European countries like Sweden, Denmark and France—nations that are largely atheistic. In France, where I lived on and off for about a year, people just sleep in on Sundays. They seem pretty ethical, too—so you clearly don’t need God or religion to be moral. And I haven’t noticed that Sweden and Denmark, among the most atheistic countries in the world, are hotbeds of crime and perfidy.
It’s my feeling that as religion wanes, other, secular activities gradually fill the vacuum. That, at least, is the lesson of the secularism of Europe, and although the lessons of Europe may not fully apply to the increasingly secular U.S., I simply can’t get exercised about the “we-need-to-replace-religion-with-something-else” trope. I haven’t, for example, noticed that any of the atheists I know suffer from nihilism, ennui, or existential angst. (Such feelings, of course, are required if we’re to be “serious atheists”—or so say the Sophisticated Theologians™ like David Bentley Hart and Terry Eagleton.) Maybe once in a while we feel sad about having to die, but it doesn’t dominate our lives. After all, most religious people have the nagging worry that there’s no hereafter, too. If they didn’t, why are they so afraid to die?
By and large, atheists seem to me a happy, well-adjusted group.
But David Brooks doesn’t think so. Several readers called my attention to his column in Tuesday’s New York Times, “Building better secularists.” It’s one of the more sanctimonious and tut-tutting attempts to chide atheists that I’ve seen in a while. Brooks has taken it upon himself to tell secularists how we must fill the void left by the death of God.
Here’s the problem he sees:
The point is that an age of mass secularization is an age in which millions of people have put unprecedented moral burdens upon themselves. People who don’t know how to take up these burdens don’t turn bad, but they drift. They suffer from a loss of meaning and an unconscious boredom with their own lives.
I haven’t seen that—have you? Are there more drifters now than, say, in the 1950s, when the Beat Generation (who, by and large, had a nebulous spirituality, often derived from Buddhism), were seen as “drifting”? Are the kids whose heads are glued to their iPhones doing that because it’s a failed substitute for God? Where are Brooks’s data?
But he apparently doesn’t need data to wag his fingers at us and tell us what we must do. Here’s his remedy:
But I can’t avoid the conclusion that the secular writers are so eager to make the case for their creed, they are minimizing the struggle required to live by it. Consider the tasks a person would have to perform to live secularism well:
Secular individuals have to build their own moral philosophies. Religious people inherit creeds that have evolved over centuries. Autonomous secular people are called upon to settle on their own individual sacred convictions.
Secular individuals have to build their own communities. Religions come equipped with covenantal rituals that bind people together, sacred practices that are beyond individual choice. Secular people have to choose their own communities and come up with their own practices to make them meaningful.
Secular individuals have to build their own Sabbaths. Religious people are commanded to drop worldly concerns. Secular people have to create their own set times for when to pull back and reflect on spiritual matters.
That’s right: I need a Build Your Own Sabbath kit! It comes with tapes of inspirational music and a some books by Deepak Chopra.
I doubt that I need to spend much time refuting Brooks’s contentions, except to say that the French “sabbath” consists of going to the country and eating good food; and I suspect that goes for Danes and Swedes as well. The moral philosophy part is just dumb, but I’ll leave that to Dan Dennett, who, among others, replied to Brooks’s misguided screed. It’s not as if nonbelievers have to build a moral philosophy from the ground up, you know—we can draw on the work of dozens of secular philosophers from the Greeks to Peter Singer. Is Brooks really that pig-ignorant?
And this unctuous paragraph really irks me:
The only secularism that can really arouse moral motivation and impel action is an enchanted secularism, one that puts emotional relations first and autonomy second. I suspect that over the next years secularism will change its face and become hotter and more consuming, less content with mere benevolence, and more responsive to the spiritual urge in each of us, the drive for purity, self-transcendence and sanctification.
My response to the call for an “enchanted secularism” is this:
Dear Mr. Brooks,
We’re doing great, thank you. We don’t need more stinking spirituality: the awe and emotions we feel now before things like science, music, art—and cats!—are just fine. And a good meal with friends and wine, combined with some activities that help others, go a long way toward establishing our sense of community.
Yours,
The secularists of America
Fortunately, although readers literally begged me to take on Brooks at length, others have filled the breach, and so I don’t have to re-till the fields. Have a look at two of the four letters that came in to the Times in response, published under the header, “Secularists: We’re fine without God, thanks.” First, Dan Dennett takes on the philosophy issue:
To the Editor:
Re “Building Better Secularists” (column, Feb. 3):
David Brooks says secular individuals have to build their own moral philosophies, while religious people inherit creeds that have evolved over centuries. Autonomous secular people are called upon to settle on their own individual sacred convictions.
Secularists don’t have to “build” anything; we can choose moral philosophies from what’s already well tested. If religious people think that their “faith” excuses them from evaluating the duties and taboos handed down to them, they are morally obtuse.
Does Mr. Brooks think that religious people are not “called upon to settle on their own individual sacred convictions”? Children may be excused for taking it on authority, but not adults.
Mr. Brooks writes, “Religious people are motivated by their love for God and their fervent desire to please Him.” We secularists have no need for love of any imaginary being, since there is a bounty of real things in the world to love, and to motivate us: peace, justice, freedom, learning, music, art, science, nature, love and health, for instance.
Our advice: Eliminate the middleman, and love the good stuff that we know is real.
DANIEL C. DENNETT
Medford, Mass.
The writer, a professor of philosophy at Tufts University, is co-author of“Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind.”
Well said! If Brooks thinks that all religious people get their moral codes from faith, or even have them buttressed by faith, he’s living on Mars. What about the many Catholics who deliberately violate church dogma on stuff like extramarital sex and homosexuality, seeing that dogma as immoral? And does Brooks know about the not-so-good stuff that comes from religiously-inspired morality? Look at the Republican party, or at ISIS.
A bioethics professor also slaps Brooks down:
To the Editor:
How presumptuous of David Brooks to instruct us “secularists” on how to live the moral life. We have to build our own moral philosophies? Nonsense. I learned mine from my atheistic parents and from teachers throughout my education (not to mention Aristotle, Kant, Mill and the many other moral philosophers I studied).
We have to reflect on spiritual matters? No, I reflect on the injustices in this world, why so many children in the United States go hungry, and why centuries of violence continue to persist in the name of religion.
In place of the religious spiritual life, we atheists may be enraptured by a Beethoven symphony, moved by the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, enchanted by a Rembrandt portrait. We have to build our own Sabbaths? No, thanks; I’ll spend my secular weekends at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, attending a New York Philharmonic concert or rereading “A Theory of Justice,” by John Rawls.
RUTH MACKLIN
Bronx
The writer is a professor of bioethics in the department of epidemiology and population health at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
Finally have a look at the other two letters on the site. One, from a Mennonite minister, says this:
God is not some idea that you believe is either true or false. Faith is not so coldly rational.
Once again we see a person of faith claiming to speak for all believers, and getting it wrong in the process. “Not true or false”, really? Tell that to Alvin Plantinga!
Subscribe.
Great stuff.
Schrodinger’s god.
Bast?
/@
Perhaps Mr Brooks should get a pile of ‘build your own Sabbath kits’ and set fire to them; then he could have a bonfire of his own vanity.
Lol! Good one!
+1 – did he find these drifting atheists in his navel? Because it seems to be that at which Mr. Brooks spends all his time gazing.
Think how this would read if, instead of pointing at godless strawpeople, it was written in the first person “If I did not feign belief in God, then I would …” I kind of feel like that’s what’s going on there in his beautiful mind.
My mind was reeling, for a moment, on how to parody this point. What would be in our Sabbath kit? A sampler of wines and cheeses for each day of Festivus week? A lock of Dawkins’ hair as a holy relic?
Bwaa haa ha.
Maybe a bunch of cards that tell you to do things like eat cheese, read a book, go on WEIT and make smart assed remarks with other atheists. 🙂
Yeah! Of course that means we are fanatical secularists since we do that every day. ‘Cept for the cheese part.
Don’t forget the Toilet Paper Adjustment routines.
(What was that about ‘smart assed remarks with other atheists? 😉
Yes by these are Jerry’s cards. Mine would have a whole toilet paper ritual.
the whole ritual?
With candles? And ‘spring breeze’-scented air freshener?
I really want to see the Jerry Coyne’s Build Your Own Sabbath Kit™. It could be advertised on TV: “Are you a secular drifter? Do you struggle with building your own morality? Well, struggle no more with Jerry Coyne’s Build Your Own Sabbath Kit™!” It needs to be distributed through K-Tel for retro value.
Branding is important! Not “Jerry Coyne’s”, but “Prof Ceiling Cat’s”
NINETEEN-NINETY-NINE, that’s only NINETEEN-NINETY-NINE… offervoidwhereprohibitedbylawbatteriesnotincluded.
instead of $19.99 he should charge $18.59
The year of the Ulster revival?
November 24, 1859
On the origin of species by means of natural selection, Published.
Ah. Much better. …although the Ulster revival did have more of the flavor of a Brooks commentary, with its religiots wandering around in a fever dream, babbling nonsense, and generally falling down a lot.
Correct. Brooks writes with such disdain for his fellow humans I would think he loathes them. He must truly believe he lives in a separate palace of specialness.
The man lacks integrity and creativity.
He must get this habit of sloppy thinking from having to come up with a column on a regular basis. Let’s see…Republicans on immigration? Obama’s many failings?…lets see…How about drifting secularists? Ya, that’s it!
Well, at least Mr. Brooks did not refer to flesh-and-blood human beings as objectified “human capital” or “social capital,” as is usually his wont, or at least so I perceive.
What appalling arrogance! How dare Brooks tell me what I think and and how I feel! A subsidiary thought: why are so many Americans so insular? This aspect of American exceptionalism is ugly.
This was pretty much my response. Who the f**k does this guy think he is? The link to his article isn’t working for me, but he gives the impression of being a smug, self-righteous, sanctimonious, prig – the kind of person those of us who left religion behind often had rather too much of.
I love the comments about the ‘Build your own Sabbath’ kits. My Sunday mornings usually include lying in bed reading WEIT. As do my Saturday mornings. It’s 8am Saturday morning now in NZ – I wonder how much more decadence I can get away with before I have to get on with my atheist lifestyle – laundry and shopping. First of course, is the shower I take every morning. Ritual bathing! Who knew?
It seems as though Brooks doesn’t quite get what secularism/atheism is really about:
“Secular people have to create their own set times for when to pull back and reflect on spiritual matters.”
I don’t accept that there any such things as “spiritual matters”, so why would I need to waste time reflecting on them?
“I suspect that over the next years secularism will change its face and become…. more responsive to the spiritual urge in each of us, the drive for purity, self-transcendence and sanctification.”
Wrong again. “Purity”, “self-transcendence” and “sanctification” are all meaningless terms to me, and I feel no need to change my secularism to accomodate any of them.
“But I can’t avoid the conclusion that the secular writers are so eager to make the case for their creed, they are minimizing the struggle required to live by it.”
Then you’ll just have to try harder to avoid that conclusion, Mr Brooks.
And if you don’t believe in astrology, you have to randomly choose how to evaluate people based on their month of birth.
And if you don’t believe in leprechauns, you have to come up with your own story of where you left your pants when you were wasted on St. Patrick’s Day.
And if you don’t believe in “traditional” medicine, you have to fabricate reasons why the medicine a physician gives you, you know, works.
And if you don’t believe in Yahweh, you have to demonstrate your morality instead of it just being assumed. 😉
And then when you demonstrate that morality, you have to give the credit to Yahweh, not to your own sensibilities.
And if you demonstrate your morality, you have to give the credit to Yahweh and not your own sensibilities.
sorry for the 2x…durnit
+n
And if I don’t believe in demons in my bathtub, I have to come up with reasons why the space monkeys keep an eye out for them.
And if I don’t….good grief. Brooks is filled in incomplete thoughts. He should return to second grade to learn logic.
Yes. It’s really puzzling how weird and banal the lead columnists are for the main NY and DC puppy trainers – two of the world’s great news organs, but their primary opinionators are, well, organs. I’m sure there’s a dispositive theory for it. Thanks to the Internet I can find many, many other equally eloquent sources of opinion that actually teach me something and/or make me think.
It’s like they are a young boy who just found their new organ!
Responding to Dave: I agree wholeheartedly! The terms that Brooks uses will sound absolutely hollow or even absurd to many a non-believer (“Purity”? “Sanctification”?).
And even for freethinkers who feel that something like “self-transcendence” may be valuable or interesting, there are rational and non-religious ways of achieving it–such as the different tiers of meditation described by Sam Harris in WAKING UP.
Brooks’ contention that atheists must–by definition–“struggle” more than their fellow human beings is laughable. The evidence is simply not there.
And besides, isn’t “the struggle” what christianity is supposed to cherish? Aren’t we all supposed to be lab rats being tested, and the harder the test the . . . . more awesome, worthy of praise and, more importantly, worthy of heavenly reward we are?
Nope…. I find no possible excuses that allows Sam Harris to get off the hook of being accused of exactly the same grievous fault as David Brooks or Alain de Botton. The prescriptive preaching of any sort of “superior” form of “spiritual for atheists” is contrary to the fundamental premises of our atheist/humanist/freethinking value system. Nothing irritates me more than the “mine is bigger than yours” sort of mentality that these individuals communicate about the shallowness their fellow secularists differing personal values about what is inspirational and what exact practises are required to achieve their own form of superior inspiration.
Sam Harris being preachy? I don’t see it. He may use that S word I don’t like but his definition of said word is something I can accept.
BS, Howie. It is one thing for an atheist to opine on the subject. It is another for a believer to tut-tut about what secularists “must” do.
Well GB, I’d say when someone titles a whole book “A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion” and then makes statements like “A rational approach to spirituality seems to be what is missing from secularism and from the lives of most of the people I meet” (I take it he means me and most of my friends) and then describes MY “impoverished” view of life with quotes like “Scientists generally start with an impoverished view of spiritual experience, assuming that it must be a grandiose way of describing ordinary states of mind-parental love, artistic inspiration, awe at the beauty ….” and then spends 7 chapters telling me of practises to sort myself out I’d say he really is preaching to me. And I don’t like it. I’ve heard enough preachers already to last a lifetime, thank you.
OK. I’ll confess not to have read this particular book of Sam’s, so I’m in no position to argue that part. Still, I think there is a very important difference between these what you describe (which, if I may paraphrase is something like “I think we secularists may be missing xyz”) and a believer like David Brooks tut-tutting about the missing umph in my life.
FWIW, the reason I haven’t bothered with Sam’s “Guide” is that I don’t feel much of a need for such stuff, either. So we’re not that far apart here. I just find an atheist telling me what I’m missing, even if I disagree, somehow less vomit-inducing than a religious person doing so.
I, however, did read Waking Up and I didn’t see it as preachy at all. The main argument is that you can meditate and be mindful without the woo or religion and that there is an aversion to mindfulness among atheists because it traditionally comes with the woo or religious baggage.
Exactly. There’s a fair amount of “this is why people like this sort of thing and why it’s worth you considering if you might like it, too, which is completely understandable. But I definitely didn’t come away with “Your life is worthless if you don’t do this thing.”
Even if you’re sure that sort of thing can’t possibly be for you, the book is still worth a read just to understand what that sort of thing is all about and why people are into it. Think of it as akin to going to the art museum when some big exhibit is on display. There’s no commitment required to actually like the work, and certainly not to agree with any sociopolitical agenda the artist might be pushing…but it’s still worth a little bit of your time and attention to have some idea of what the fuss is all about.
b&
“But I definitely didn’t come away with “Your life is worthless if you don’t do this thing.””
No Ben, the exact word that Sam uses is “impoverished” which I’d say means pretty much the same thing.
And by yours and Diana’s standards for what preaching is and what it is not, I can’t imagine how David Brooks (or even Billy Graham) can be accused of doing anything less acceptable than Sam Harris.
Let me define what I see as preaching. It is saying to someone, something along the lines of:
“I’ve got a better way of living by doing X – it’s better by far than the Y that you do – you should do it too and your life is impoverished if you do Y instead of X – the way to do X is achieved by the process of studying X and then doing a,b,c,d which constitutes the particular practices of X.” I challenge you both to show that this is not EXACTLY what Harris does at length in “Waking Up”. More than this, what Harris is writing about is what he particularly sees as his own definition of living “the good life”. But his justification for saying this particularly is “the good life” constitutes of little else but his personal BELIEFS or opinions. For example: WHY is mindfulness a necessary practise? – e.g. WHY is it better to “live in the moment” than to include in ones day-to-day thinking the future and past? – WHY should we spend endless hours learning to suppress the “illusion” of self? Like other preachers Harris feels he has found “the answer” and what he is doing is trying to convince us of adopting that belief and it’s practices. Exactly the same as David Brooks does. We owe fellow atheists/freethinkers/skeptics/Humanists more respect for the conclusions they individually have reached about what constitutes the good life.
For whatever reason, that’s not at all the “vibe” I got from Sam’s book. Rather, it was like any other self-help type of book, such as about an exercise method or time management or nutrition plan or whatever. Yes, you expect the author to be passionate about the topic and to be convinced that it’s the best variation on that particular theme, but you also expect the author to acknowledge that it’s not going to work for everybody and to give guidance on how to customize it for maximum personal benefit. Which is, by the way, exactly what Sam does — and, indeed, much more so than is typical of those other examples.
You’d expect a fitness instructor to be passionate about everybody, regardless of current condition, engaging in some sort of regular physical activity, right? A time management guru to want to see everybody accomplish their goals? A nutritionist encourage people to avoid junk food as much as possible?
To me, at least, that’s the sort of thing Sam does with his book.
b&
Yes Ben, I totally agree that the genre into which Sam’s new book falls is indeed “self-help.” But its recommendations have a much greater scope and reach than your ordinary run-of-the-mill “this is a healthy activity for you” type of self help text. It relies on, and it actually demands a specific set of beliefs, a specific view of “the good life” which has never been so tightly defined, advocated or required for members of our secular community. In this process Sam specifically goes out of his way to downgrade other forms of “spirituality” and inspiration that many secularists already feel is more than sufficient e.g. what Harris feels is our more “primitive” or shallow “Einsteinian” sense of awe at the nature of the universe as revealed by science. It is loaded with prescriptive behaviours, many of which you must admit are justified with nothing but some trivial deepities. Sam is a leading spokesperson for our movement and I believe this behoves him not to try to impose personal beliefs and practises into the value system of the secular community. I cannot ever imagine Dawkins, Dennett or our deeply missed Hitch ever writing such a “self-help” manual.
Where exactly does Sam say that we are “impoverished”. Let’s set some context around the line you do quote that you show as evidence that Sam is judging all of us:
This line appears in the first chapter. This sentence precedes it:
Sam then goes on in the next section about the search for happiness to talk about how many atheists don’t like the term “spiritual” because its used to comment on a larger reality. He then talks about mindfulness as something that is achievable without the woo. Nowhere does he say that if you don’t do that then you are an impoverished person that is doing atheism wrong. He simply states that it is possible to achieve mindfulness without religion and woo. The rest of the book outlines the science behind this and how it is possible to go about achieving this for yourself.
Be honest – did you read the entire book or did you read a few trigger words in the free first chapter that set you off?
“Where exactly does Sam say that we are “impoverished”
I gave that particular quote in my earlier post Diana. It’s Harris’s view on Einsteins and most other scientific peoples “spiritual” outlook, as with Dawkins treatment of spirituality in “Unweaving the Rainbow” for example.
“He simply states that it is possible to achieve mindfulness without religion and woo.”
The big question is what necessarily justifies mindfulness as being some superior and essential condition that we secularists need to strive for? Unless this is convincingly proven I’m afraid it is still woo, with only a small subset of that woo removed.
“Be honest – did you read the entire book or did you read a few trigger words in the free first chapter that set you off?”
Honestly Diana, I read “waking Up” from cover to cover – well actually, from front to back as I have the Kindle edition. I really tried to read it with an open mind.
So then the quote you gave which I put in context says nothing about impoverishment. You put quotes around that word like Sam said it and that’s incorrect.
Further you are asserting without evidence again. You may disagree that mindfulness is worthwhile but you provide no evidence that Sam is telling his readers that their lives are impoverished without it.
“You put quotes around that word like Sam said it and that’s incorrect.”
The quote (as already posted) is:
“Scientists generally start with an impoverished view of spiritual experience, assuming that it must be a grandiose way of describing ordinary states of mind-parental love, artistic inspiration, awe at the beauty ….”
Page 7 Location 120 in Kindle
I don’t really appreciate being accused of making something up Diana.
And really, I don’t objet to quite a lot of what Harris writes, but NOBODY deserves a free ride without having his arguments challenged. Harris is seriously off base in “Waking Up
Howie, it’s pretty clear that Sam is describing the view of spirituality as being impoverished, not that the lives of those who live without spirituality are in turn impoverished.
I might write the same thing about the typical American view of opera as being impoverished, as most Americans seem to think it’s nothing but fat women screeching wobbly grunts at the top of their lungs. Jerry might use similar language to describe American views of football (soccer), and Diana of toilet paper orientation.
In each case, we’d argue that the subject is very important to us personally and that we think lots of people are missing out on a good thing…but, of course, we all realize that nobody can possibly indulge in all life’s pleasures, and, furthermore, that tastes differ and not everybody will “get it” even if they do understand it to some basic level of competence. Minimalist music, for example, annoys the ever-living shit out of me — and this is after studying and analyzing it as much as any other genre in a music degree, so it’s not like I don’t know what it is.
I’d be very surprised if Sam would tell somebody that their lives are impoverished without whatever-it-is he means by spirituality, save in that same sense that somebody’s life would be impoverished without chocolate or good books or a cat.
Cheers,
b&
I must congratulate you on your brave efforts to defend your man, but it just won’t wash Ben. Let me touch on the serious problems that arise from what Sam is expressing. He is not, as you try to paint it, talking about pastimes, hobbies or tastes in music or art –things that we can express strong criticisms about without giving strong offense or undermining someones entire philosophical viewpoint. We are talking about the most deeply felt sense of what makes life itself wonderful, beautiful, astonishing, profound and in many senses worthwhile. For a large number of scientists – e.g. Einstein, Sagan, Dawkins, Feynman, Krauss etc. etc. etc. as well as most of those who adhere to values of scientific thought such as myself, these “spiritual” feelings are embodied in EXACTLY what Harris disparages as impoverished – not up to that same level of spirituality that he and like minded practitioners of mindfulness/meditation achieve. However he also says that there are some who DO reach these same “heights” – for they are reachable by elements of practices embodied in the religious experience. Others achieve these spiritual heights through the use of drugs (the very antithesis to rational process). One could say what a pity it is then to be an ordinary rationalist/atheist. So Sam’s stance is not just offensive; it is contrary to one of the central themes of secular thought – that we really can shed any prescriptive practices to live the good life. Rationality, a sceptical outlook, a demand for evidence, and a value on knowledge is all that counts – and what one finds as spiritual, or whether one finds nothing spiritual at all is irrelevant. Any additional views on spirituality are merely personal, of equal merit, and certainly deserve mutual respect.
About all I can reply at this point is that you clearly didn’t read the same book I did.
b&
Oh we were reading the same book all right, but I think you always read a Sam Harris book wearing your rose colored glasses….
Cheers Ben
Quite the contrary. Many’s the time I’ve ripped Sam a new one, especially on the topics of torture and the use of nuclear weapons.
b&
That’s certainly true!
/@
I didn’t say you made anything up but your evidence for saying Sam Harris is telling us all we live impoverished lives if we do not follow his recipe for a good life is completely lacking in evidence. It took until now to get the context of “impoverished” from you.
Further saying “Scientists generally start with an impoverished view of spiritual experience, assuming that it must be a grandiose way of describing ordinary states of mind-parental love, artistic inspiration, awe at the beauty ….” by no way says we are impoverished. It says that their view is lacking or poor when it comes to “spiritual experience”.
Diana…perfectly encapsulated. Thank you.
“Purity” isn’t just a meaningless term to me. To me, a woman, it is a dangerous term.
Women around the world have been killed or have had their lives severely curtailed or irretrievably damaged in the name of purity.
We secularists should NOT drive for purity.
That struck me too. ‘Purity’ is – whatever some wally says it is.
Decades back, when margarine first came on the market here, the butter producers hit back with a series of rather offensive ads touting butter as ‘Pure and natural’. That’s right, a variable mixture of fatty acids originating in a cow’s stomach and processed in a dairy factory is ‘pure’. Pure BS.
Ivory soap I believe was also advertised as 99.9% pure.
Ah yes, as famously advertised by Marilyn Chambers I believe. Gotta love the irony (though I doubt if Proctor & Gamble did…)
99 44/100%, to be precise.
b&
Put that in your fat and lime
Sometimes I wonder if people like Brooks (e.g. Andrew Brown & Stanley Fish) are really closet masochists, putting their idiot opinions out there merely for the inevitable spankings they will receive.
that’s quite a mental image. And I think you are right.
It is kind of interesting to see the mental stumbling block in action of someone trying their best to imagine a life without religion and – well, just not quite managing it.
Wondering how you can replace religion once you let go of it is like wondering what you will do with your daily life once you have gotten rid of your latent homophobia.
Insulting and incorrect for Brooks to say that secular people “suffer from a loss of meaning and an unconscious boredom with their own lives.” How could anyone be bored with this wondrous universe all around us, from a preying mantis looking like a dried leaf or devouring a husband (maybe not her own) to questions of evolution of bacteria, to redpolls and pine siskins at the bird feeder.
Going by his ideas about secularists, presumably informed by his imaginings of himself without his religion, he seems like a fragile and incompetent person.
I’d like to offer him encouragement and assure him that very likely he is much more competent than he is giving himself credit for, if only he gave himself the chance. Don’t be scared Brooks.
The problem as I see it is that people like Brooks are so busy with their imaginary god that they’ve missed all the real wonder out there. Their minds are limited by their focus.
Considering the conflation of religion and football in Amuricuh, it seems a lot of Christians are bored.
What is it with “unconscious boredom” anyway? If you’re not consciously bored, how are your bored at all?
I think Brooks must mean that atheists are bored with their lives but they are unaware that this is part of their problem. As I said above, I disagree with this notion.
You picked the best two responses to quote! They can say it for me. Well done.
I tolerate Brooks because he is one of the least insane members of the GOP. But, looking at what he writes says something about the GOP. I think it behooves every secularist (in the US at least) to listen to Faux Noise and to, for instance, Rush Limbaugh once in a while to hear how batshit crazy the other side is.
That’s one of the reasons I do it. You can’t beat an enemy you don’t understand.
The supposed moral high ground of the religious is a myth.
I bet there are many Christians working for the tobacco industry, for example, or are involved in the distribution of cigarettes. And they know that the big tobacco industry kills 6 million people a year, that’s 600 million dead over a century. Or Christians working for the Big Oil & Coal polluters that destroy the entire planet’s ecosystems.
What’s moral about that?
Not to mention all the GOP “Christians” who are slaves to the idea of a free-market, punishing the poor, the working poor and middle-class, making health care a privilege, denying climate change (while working for Big Oil and Coal), advocating war, the military and prison industrial complexes, denying rights to LBTG Americans, suppressing the vote…on and on it goes. Their idea of morality is vacuous.
That’s what I’m talking about. All this Bible -waving is completely useless as it doesn’t make people any more moral or social citizens.
The only immoral “deaths” are those of foetuses. All others can be rationalized and forgiven if you repent and let Christ into your life! Praise the Lord! For he is …
How does anyone believe this without brainwashing?
They don’t. All newborn babies haven’t a clue – or as Dawkins says, are atheists.
brooks’ commentaries are usually facile and stream-of-consciousness. he’s paid to say something, so he says almost anything.
Sez Brooks: “Sir, you insult me! My commentaries are not ‘stream of consciousness’! I practice the Victorian art of automatic writing, thank you very much!”
“So you’re not insulted by ‘facile’?”
“I stand by my remarks. Good day, Sir!”
For years (under a different name) I’ve been telling the atheists on Reddit that secular humanism is for atheists who just can’t bear to completely give up religion. I usually get downvoted though.
Well, I’d downvote you. I’m a secularist and a humanist, a member of the UK’s NSS and BHA.
Maybe “secular humanism” means something different in the US, but non of that is in any way a substitute for religion. My Catholicism lapsed when I was in my teens (I’m now 54) and I’ve never lacked for things to do on Sundays!
My membership of the NSS and BHA are far more about opposing religious privilege and the intrusion of religion into social policy.
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Sent from my iPhone. Please excuse all creative spellings.
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Secular humanism does vary. There are quite a few I know who actually create holidays, ceremonies (‘coming of age’ etc –whatever that means) etc.
Personally when I left religion, there was NOTHING I wanted to bring with me. I have absolutely no desire for ritual or ceremony.
Atheism is a big tent, I really don’t care if others want to cling to ‘spirituality’, but it’s not for me.
Not even the previous Pope’s red slippers or those very fashionable <a mitre hats?
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Well, it’s true that the BHA does provide celebrants for namings, weddings* and funerals, which still seems appropriate to me, and there’s certainly nothing “spiritual” about them. Humanists do have regular meet ups, but there’s no group local to me; however, I understand they’re very /un/like services.
* Although humanist celebrants can’t legally marry people like priests &c. can, a bone of political contention in the UK at the moment!
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In Florida (& a couple of other states), US, a Notary Public can legally marry people. Any resident who wants to can become a notary by taking a 3 hour course, paying a fee of $39 and securing a bond for about $70.
In California, you don’t even have to become a notary. Civil marriages can be performed by a deputy marriage commissioner (county clerks are marriage commissioners, among other things), and many counties allow anyone to be deputized for a day to officiate at a marriage.
Ritual and sabbath have little to do with the problems encountered when leaving a church.
I sang in a church choir for ten years. I wasn’t a member, but I liked the music. I notices that most of the people who attended church were old.
Churches provide innumerable benefits for old people. Particularly people who outlive their friends. I’m cursed to be descended from people who typically live to 95. When my parents died, they had outlived all their friends and almost all their close relatives.
With luck, I will reach that point. My sister is a secular churchgoer. She doesn’t care about theology, but she lives alone, and most of her social life involves church members.
It isn’t about Sunday picnics or concerts. It’s about surviving, and about having someone to call if you fall down, or someone to check on you if you can’t call.
One doesn’t need a church for those benefits. I live in a gated, over-55 community in the winter in Florida which supplies all that and much more to residents. There is all kind of active activities (several sports, pool, fitness center) as well as all kind of club (this place has 40 clubs – theatre, photography, charity work, billiards, etc.) and many types of clubhouse activities in the evenings (shows, cards and other games, current events discussions. shows, lectures, etc.). Some people participate in many of the above; some a few of these, and some stay in their homes, never to be seen.
Which is fine if you can afford to live in a gated community. Not everyone can.
Also, those communities don’t provide services to help people through temporary or permanent problems.
Are your gated neighbors going to bring you meals and fetch your groceries for you when you break a leg? Will they offer babysitting to a young mother?
You can, of course, pay agencies to provide these services but, again, it costs money and the services are on the clock.
If I am healthy, independent and have money, I don’t need a gated community with a pool or a golf course – I can swim at my local Y and play a few rounds at the municipal golf course.
It is when I am unhealthy, dependent and/or poor that I may need a caring community.
Now the spiritual stuff…that’s a load of crap. The world is full of awesome wonders. Chanting “our god is an awesome god” over and over again, doesn’t make it so.
What percentage of churches or religious organizations supply the temporary or permanent help you describe? I would guess the ones who suck money from their members so their pastor can drive Mercedes and live in multi-million dollar homes outnumber those.
Studies have shown that NGOs provide far more effective help than either governments or especially religious organizations.
People have been brainwashed to believe religious organizations have a good side that outweighs the down side. There is no need for them and everything can be done without them.
Depending on what you mean by that, you’re either mistaken, confused, or at least partly right. Both “secular humanism” and “religion” need defining.
I might say that Unitarian Universalism is for atheists who can’t bear to completely give up religion — but I’d probably qualify even that.
I know my view is biased, but reading Brooks article does not leave me with a good impression of religious people. If he is trying to portray religion and religious belief as a good thing, I think he has shot himself in the foot.
He makes religious believers seem like lazy incompetents that can’t be trusted to do anything on their own. In contrast he makes secularists seem like the only competent people around. I think if the context were just about anything other than religion that the majority of people, including religious believers, would feel the same way.
Pick any service you would hire somebody to do for you. Surgery, plumbing repair, car repair, lawyer, anything. Would you be impressed with a person who can’t do anything of their own recognizance?
I also got that impression, among others, as I read my way to his stupid conclusion.
“Religious people inherit creeds that have evolved over centuries…over the next years secularism will change its face [to become] more responsive to the spiritual urge in each of us, the drive for purity, self-transcendence and sanctification.”
Translation: Religious people are peurile, lazy people who accept authority handed down from ignorant ancestors and moldering scriptures – and atheists need to imitate them.
Somehow I feel William Blake’s poem,The Garden of Love, is apt here because Brooks tries to say we need some sort of boundaries defined somewhere by someone.
I’ve always loved Blake, and that is a good one.
Oops, I misread that as ‘Blake tries to say we need boundaries…’ My mistake!
Blake put it beautifully. Thanks for the quotation.
I thought the same thing. “Thinking is hard. I don’t want to think. Somebody should just tell me stuff.”
The religious can’t seem to make up their minds regarding whether being an atheist is difficult work or taking the easy way out.
Appallingly ignorant. If he were to write an article telling Jews how to be more like Christians, or telling Catholics to be more like protestants, he would be, well, fired I suppose. But atheists are an easy target. We can do a pretty good job at pointing and laughing, but that is about it.
I understand that Mr. Brooks is of Jewish heritage; I presume that he subscribes to some form of Judaism. If some Christian zealot prevailed on him to convert, on what basis would he decline, other than to say that Christianity is not true or is man-made?
Would he have any problem with one declaring fealty to The Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster?
“Do we need “Sunday Sermons”? ”
A local group was trying to start one of these “Sunday Assembly” things. I went to some of the planning meetings, but what the SA people try to do is duplicate Church services in a secular way. Singing. Moment of silence. Lesson of the day. Basically all of the stuff I hated about Church.
And SA isn’t committed to rationality, it’s just committed to non-religion, so there’s no exclusion of other crazy people.
What I’d really like to do is have some sort of dinner group of secular, rational people and skip all of the pseudo-religious crap.
The music was the only thing I liked about church! Our organist was an wonderful musician. I wanted to applaud her after every hymn (not allowed!). She never tried to get attention or praise for her work (which I am virtually certain was entirely voluntary).
That’s true for many people. My father used to say that, but my mother would give him a withering look and tell him in a disgusted tone that this was not the right reason to go to church.
Anyway, the SA people were talking about guitars and secular versions of religious ditties, not organ music.
Casseroles are the right reason to go to church. I love me a good potluck. 🙂
Indeed! My best casserole inventions have been the “hmmmm what’s left in the pantry and fridge, damn, I should have gone to the store last week,” kind. The only problem is, by the time they have been rated a success I can’t remember how I made them well enough to accurately reproduce them!
I use the memo app on my phone for keeping track. I have files for chicken dishes, salad dressings, appetizers/dips, beef/pork, veggie dishes, fish.
When someone asks “How did you make…?” I pull out my iPhone and tell them.
” . . . not the right reason to go to church.”
Ha, well, then why have any music in the first place? It seems to be part of the strategy of evangelism, emotional manipulation and all that, especially the invitation at the end of the sermon, at least in a Southern Baptist church. Or so was its effect on me, in my callow, sometimes uncritically-thinking, youth.
Oh yes, the music. Lots of churches have boring music, but a Bach cantata, Mozart’s Requiem or the “Blind Boys of Alabama” doing traditional gospel, there is some common ground we can share.
I would be tempted a bit if the ‘services’ were to come together, chat about science and society, & maybe see a good movie.
I read this article in the Palm Beach Post this morning over my coffee and thought “here is a guy who is clueless. Every paragraph is nonsense”.
What a ridiculous controversy! Every sane individual knows that Dog is a woman and Eris is her name!
http://www.discordian.com/
Brooks’ link doesn’t work.
Greg,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/03/opinion/david-brooks-building-better-secularists.html
Jerry, the first instance of the link borked
Glad to see this post. I’ve been meaning to respond to the Brooks piece as well, but just haven’t gotten around to it. Anyways, Brooks made so many assumptions it was ridiculous. The bit about community made some sense, but I completely disagreed with the rest.
I had to laugh….how many Christians manage to drop worldly concerns?
Laughed again. How many Christians actually live that way?
But I do agree with Brooks’ comment that we have to build our own moral philosophies. Dennett was willfully obtuse when he said that we can choose from existing moral philosophies. That concept is included in building a personal philosophy….it’s very helpful for a secularist to become aware of what other moral guidance that great thinkers have constructed. That really takes more work in our society than merely attending a church service once a week.
I think his exposure to Xtians is likely equivalent to his exposure to atheists: there’s not much of it.
Not the first time David Brooks has taken a needed beating for his opinions. This one will likely last for a while because it is complete nonsense.
Go back to the Beginning of the Iraq conflict with the GOP leaders in charge and listen to some of Brooks garbage as he jumps up and down and leads the cheers to battle. It will make some sick to review this stuff and he is the great political know all. Andrew Bacevich took time in one of his books to rip into Brooks for his statements throughout the lovely war. And then in the end, Brooks realized he had been mislead in this mission, did a 180 and moved on. Why anyone would listen to him — just a waste of time. It’s really good to get his advice to the atheists and especially where to put it.
“Religious people are motivated by their love for God and their fervent desire to please Him.”
This is mostly not true in any case. Religious people are motivated mostly in the same way that the non-religious are. Most people, religious or otherwise, have the morality they have because of indoctrination in youth. What is right and wrong is simply felt to be right and wrong, with no God intermediary.
Growing up very religious, the only time I actively thought about God when considering an action that might have a moral valence was with sex. It was prohibited outside marriage in my religion, but quite tempting compared to other things I was indoctrinated to think of as wrong (stealing, lying, hurting people). To maintain my “morality” on this topic did take quite a bit of thinking about God, but it was terror, not love, that did the motivating.
In any case, the idea that the religious don’t have to struggle with moral choices because they have a guide is quite laughable. Has Brooks ever, even once, been to a Bible study? It is a constant struggle for sincere religious people to make any kind of moral sense out of the Bible. You have God approved genocide and all sorts of horrors on the one side. But you have your moral indoctrination, now informed greatly by Enlightenment values (genocide is bad) on the other. If anything, sincere religious people have a much much larger moral struggle on their hands because the Bible tells us both to kill our enemies and to love them, that the old law was broken, but still in effect, it holds up eternal torture as morally just, while frowning on harming anyone, it smiles on genocide and sex slavery (don’t kill the virgins, take them for yourself) on one page and on the next says to love everyone as yourself.
No, leaving religion brought a tremendous moral clarity to me. I no longer had to try to make sense of the absurdity, to justify as “good” things that seem manifestly wicked to me. I could think what I think, approve of what I approve of, without reference to some god**** ancient madhouse of stories.
I’m sorry I’ve not got the reference, but I remember about a Jewish boy in a Catholic College: “I look out of the window and I see a squirrel, it is probably the Holy Ghost again”….
vg
Great points. But by the time I was having sex, I was firmly on the road to atheism. But when young and very religious, masturbation brought up the same conflicts and terrors you refer to.
My parents had a bible study for years, and there were always members who needed some prayer buttressing because they felt their faith/moral sense was being challenged.
Like you, once I abandoned faith, morality became much more genuine and moral motivation more personal. Once God was gone, morality didn’t come from a sense of fear or conciliation anymore.
What does the vg mean? Genotypic variance? (I’m taking Noor’s on-line introduction course genetics and evolution. This week we’re moving on to HW, Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. So much better than parsing theology.)
“very good”
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“Growing up very religious, the only time I actively thought about God when considering an action that might have a moral valence was with sex.”
Right. As The Good Book says, “Fornicators shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” Such a preemptive statement is not made regarding theft, murder and greed (except for the “camel through the eye of a needle” implication of the latter).
Or perhaps taking in a game of whatever your respective country calls “football.” You know. Like Xtians do.
Still waiting for Mr. Brooks to mansplain to the religious how whatever it is they believe is leading them astray because they don’t believe what he believes.
I might call him a clown, but I have too much respect for the clown profession to slander their good name.
When I was 3-4 years old I had this giant inflatable Weeble thing (you remember the little “weebles wobble but they don’t fall down figures?”) with an image of Bozo The Clown on it. It was taller than I was. I used to have fun bopping it around, but it always popped right back up! A good analogy for arguing with religious believers.
Indeed. But least Bozo eventually sprung a leak and had to be binned; the religious seem to be unpoppable and unbinnable (or should they go like Bozo, they just fabricate a renewed faith from whatever they find among the other discards).
And thanks for that memory – I loved Bozo the Clown! Why did I so enjoy punching Bozo? Weird.
Yeah, thanks for the memory. A childhood friend had that Bozo and we both loved punching, tackling and kicking the shit out of it. One day it sprung a leak and we laughed and laughed. After the laughter subsided, my friend became scarred that his mom would be pissed (it was a relatively new toy). Don’t remember if we got scolded or not, which probably means we didn’t.
And it is a good analogy for arguing with believers…or Republicans for that matter.
Oh I think the day I ruined my last punching clown, my parents did a little happy dance. Of course, then Kung Fu became the bestest TV show evah and my friends and I started getting sprains and black eyes trying to be like Cain. Bozo didn’t hit back!
Really, religious though Americans may be, how many hours per week do they dedicate to their religion? Two? That’s precisely a few chapters in a good book, or a film, or two episodes of Game of Thrones if you need replacement for the sex and violence of the Bible.
My secular community is found in my church, which has ten brass taps behind the altar that supply me with reflective spiritual matter (5-11%).
I’m joining your church. When’s the next mass?
“two episodes of Game of Thrones if you need replacement for the sex and violence of the Bible.”
Love it!
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‘Sweden, Denmark and France’, you left out Holland and Belgium. I think that the Netherlands were the first (non-communist) country where the atheists were a majority (a 1988 poll, regrettably I have no reference).
I think Brooks does not really deserve a rebuttal, but how well, nay beautifully, it is done here!
Those are great responses
CC: “My response to most of this palaver that if we finally manage to dislodge religion from the American consciousness, people will find their own satisfying ways to make their lives.”
We already do that. It’s called [American] football. That’s kind of like a religion, anyway. Is it more popular than Jesus? I kind of think so.
This doofus is probably misinterpreting the lonely isolation atheists feel when surrounded by church folk as drifting moral confusion!
Or maybe he is mistaking bewilderment with confusion.
I frequently experience moral bewilderment when talking to my religious friends about morality. My Christian pro-torture friends, for example, bewilder me completely.
I THOUGHT that I had “taken up my unprecedented moral burdens”, but I see now that the proof of whether I have actually lies in whether I’m “drifting”, whatever that means, or that whether I have that symptom of being “unconsciously bored”-I’m still trying to figure out how one becomes aware of being “unconsciously” bored.
I do Sundaes, usually on Mondays, my favourite being apple-butter ice cream with ginger-chocolate ganache. But I wouldn’t share it with Brooks, he can build his own. 🙂
thanks for the reference to the ice cream. I must go make it!
I already have a secular Sabbath kit.
His name is, “Baihu.”
And, no — you can’t have him. Get your own!
b&
Since I am a secular Jew, my Sabbath ritual it to go out for a couple of drinks and a delicious meal on Friday nights, right after I put out the recyle bins and trash.
That works. Also good is bagels and lox for breakfast! Assuming you’ve got a decent Jewish bakery nearby, something sorely lacking in the Phoenix metro area….
b&
The Palm Beach area of South Florida has more Jewish bakeries and delis than New York (a tiny bit exagerated). Certainly more and better ones than Massachusetts (other half of the year).
Kittehs for everyone! Yeahhhh!
And, more importantly, foreverhomes for all kittehs….
b&
“After all, most religious people have the nagging worry that there’s no hereafter, too. If they didn’t, why are they so afraid to die?”
Did you really mean to imply that human fear of death arises through reason? This idea that it arises from a “nagging worry”, or, in fact, any belief about the nature of death itself, really shakes up my own long-standing and admittedly unprofessional impression about the subject. I had assumed that it was nothing more than an evolved instinct that we share with other animals. After all, what simpler and more obvious example of natural selection could there be than fear of death? Animals that avoid death tend to survive and reproduce.
I regard fear of death as a purely instinctive feeling that needs to be recognized as irrational and overcome, rather than rationalized and justified. This is a rare and amazing opportunity for me to ask the foremost authority on the subject that I could ever hope to communicate with to tell me if I’m on the right track.
Do animals fear death, or just danger? It’d be hard to say. The birds on my lawn flee from me and I think it is reasonable to say that they are afraid of me. But are they afraid of death? Do they have any concept of death? I do not know.
In any case fear, whether merely of danger or of death, is of course a product of evolution that helps keep animals alive. It is reason, however, that allows humans to realize the inevitability of death. As afraid as the birds on the lawn are of me, I do not suppose they know that death will win in the end. Humans have come to that realization, and for many, that is an added source of anxiety that our animal friends probably do not share.
Of course, reason can help us out as well. Once I realized that I’d been dead before and, as Twain is supposed to have said, I wasn’t inconvenienced by it in the slightest, that took a lot of the worry out of it. I’d prefer not to die. At least not now, in health and having a decent time enjoying life and all. But actually being dead… meh.
Being dead? No worries. The process of transitioning from being alive to being dead? There are certain categories of transitions I would rather avoid.
“…millions of people have put unprecedented moral burdens upon themselves.”
What he is saying here is they had no morality before, and suddenly, they are trying to become moral and are burdened by this. He is saying the religious are not moral people. Or at least the ex religious were not moral people. This paints the religious worse than atheists, but I doubt he meant to do that.
I don’t really care what David Brooks has to say, perhaps it’s me, I will go out of my way so I don’t have to read his articles, but the few times I’ve read him he came off as being smug, self righteous and better than everyone else. He lectures to his audience rather than talks to them. This certainly seems like another shining example.
I’d really like for Brooks to explain or define exactly what “spiritual matters” are and how it relates to an atheist.
When he says “purity, self-transcendence and sanctification”, this is just argle-bargle, meaningless words. What exactly does purity mean in regards to spiritualism? Self-transcendence or sanctification? I can look them up:
Sanctification is a state of separation unto God.
Self-transcendence is a personality trait associated with experiencing spiritual ideas such as considering oneself an integral part of the universe.
Purity:
freedom from adulteration or contamination.
“the purity of our drinking water”
synonyms: cleanness, clearness, clarity, freshness; More
sterility, healthiness, safety
“the purity of our tap water”
Freedom from immorality, especially of a sexual nature.
I’m sorry, but it’s all self referential nonsense that means nothing without further context. Except for sanctification, and perhaps I need to remind Mr. Brooks that we are atheists. We don’t believe in God, sanctification means nothing, it’s religious bafflegab.
Sexual immorality means little, what is important is that I treat my partner with respect, and maintain our monogamous relationship because that is what we desire and agreed to do. Those who prefer other arrangements are welcome to do so, without our involvement.
I don’t have to consider how I’m part of the universe, I figured that out when I was a child. It was part and parcel of my realizing I was an atheist. Most religious people don’t really believe they are part of the universe, or they certainly don’t want to be, they want an escape clause from the harsh realities of the universe. Instead of living in the universe, they want a magical all powerful being to watch over them and protect them from the universe.
When they die they don’t want to die. They want to go to a magical place that is not part of the universe. They want to live forever in that magical place.
That is not being part of the universe.
“Purity, self-transcendence, and sanctification” are deepities. If you’re not religious but like using spiritual language to express perfectly natural experiences or values they’re easily co-opted to mean something similar, but more reasonable.
Too easily co-opted. Use them and the religious will insist this is all recognition of God. Make it clear that no, you’re being secular and they’ll double down and suddenly it turns out that you just learned that no, reasonable stuff is really God, too.
Where is ‘God’ being placed? Can we think of examples of things which aren’t ideas that we believe are true or false, things that we adhere to anyway? A category where we place what isn’t a strict matter of reason alone?
Aesthetics. Morals. Preferences. Tastes. Values. Virtues.
Turns out that God is like those — and therefore those are like God! And both the author of the essay and the author of the letter get to sneer at atheism.
Brooks is a typical believer that thinks excising “God”-bottery has to leave a “God”-formed hole in the brain. That happens when you are brainwashed into religion too early to understand the alternatives.
Re Sweden, what replaced church-related activities were other types of organized activities. PZ Myers said that he wanted to see church meetings replaced with knitting groups, and that is what he can see if he goes to Scandinavia. Or classes on cooking, sailing, languages, music, training, et cetera.
It is amazing how much time you can use for having fun, socializing and learning – if you don’t waste it in religious meetings!
I would also add that people don’t really need to choose moral philosophies in a secular society. What you learn from society and especially its laws, which are organized on such a background (of ethics), does it for you. It is, what I know, an observational fact that we find the same basic moral reactions in humans, whether or not they have been subjected to religion.
And whether or not they have ever studied moral philosophy.
And especially if they are liberal minded.
“What you learn from society and especially its laws, which are organized on such a background (of ethics), does it for you.”
How, then, could we ever decide that capital punishment is wrong, or that marijuana use is ok, given that US law allows the first and denies the second (until very recently in some places)?
I think he intentionally included the more general term “society” to cover just that. I don’t think Torbjörn would disagree that people thinking formally about morality, philosophers, activists, etc., contribute to societies changing moral zeitgeist. And I don’t think he would disagree that the majority of people don’t engage in formal moral philosophy in order to determine their morality. They learn it more like they learned their first language. I could be wrong of course.
But, laws certainly are directly influenced by our morality and correspond fairly well with the “general moral zeitgeist.” So is how they are enforced at any particular time in their history.
I agree — as in the recent Canadian Supreme Court’s striking down the law against assisted suicide. Their reason for revisiting this issue in such a relatively short time(court precedent wise)after they had already pronounced in the opposite favour was that they realized they now have other countries to look to evaluate the effects of allowing doctor assisted suicide. In other words as was said above the “general moral zeitgeist” has changed.
As a high school teacher for over 20 years, I can see it in the liberal, secular views of my students — many will outright tell me they are atheist, queer culture is normalized, gay-rights, abortion rights, women’s rights, live and let live individual rights, question religious authority, separation of church and state etc. — you name it — you will hear it openly expressed by many students. Compare this to 20 years ago when I rarely heard such views expressed and I have always taught in the provincially funded Catholic Separate Schools, so my hunch is that it is even more pronounced in the “Public – Not Catholic” Provincially funded schools.
Hope springs eternal!
As a practical matter, I think that’s how it works for the most part. Every person doesn’t have the time or resources to work out everything from scratch. The starting place for almost everyone is the indoctrination of their society. In an advanced civilized society that gets you a large measure of the way there. It is only much later, and with some effort, that a person can reflect on that indoctrination and come to judgments about the morals they were indoctrinated with. And even that can take decades of life for a person to slowly see problems with moral judgments that might have seemed obvious at another time.
It’s just profoundly unlikely, I think, that a group in isolation could go from some “state of nature” to our current best moral judgments in one step, or probably even in one or a small number of generations. It takes time to see the ramifications of various moral rules, to explore alternatives, basically to collect data. This is why I can view ancient people, or even recent generations, with a bit of sympathy even though they embraced what I judge now to be horrible ethics. They started from a particular point of moral foundation and had to improve from there, often while living hard lives with less time and resources for reflection than we have now.
So, sure, you can’t just accept the laws and traditions as a moral given without reflection. They can and should be evaluated, challenged, improved. But neither can you start from any place else but the laws and traditions of your community. If you’re lucky, you’re at the end of a long tradition of moral development. If you’re not, if you’re in some country on the lagging edge of civilization, you might be struggling to get from your community indoctrination to something remotely like community standards other parts of the world. We can see how difficult that is just looking at many traditional societies that are reeling in the face of the modern world.
I think a major factor to add is environment. Living in a prosperous modern society is very different from living in even what we would consider a very advanced ancient society, for example Rome during its heyday. Risks, how quickly failure can result in disaster or death, and how much resources it takes just for basic maintenance of life. When you live in a society more like modern day Sweden all those risk factors are much lower, you have more resources than you need, and your circle of inclusion has fewer things constraining it.
I think it would be very much easier for a society starting from scratch to get to our current best moral judgments if the environment they are in is like modern day Sweden or similar.
But the caveat is that morality and the social environment are inextricably intertwined. The environment is largely dependent on the general morality, and at the same time that environment can foster changes to the general morality.
I totally agree and you make a very excellent point.
I think some moral choices I advocate now might be irresponsible in some earlier era. People closer to the edge of survival can not afford to be as generous to their neighbors as we can now. Much of my liberal leaning now comes precisely from the fact that, in my country, we are wealthy, so that, say, not providing health care for someone is obscene. Not providing health care for someone in 1600 (hypothetically assuming such a thing existed) would be a different prospect.
I have a conservative friend who sometimes argues from the perspective of a poorer time and I say, “If we were that poor, I’d agree with you. But we are not.”
As an aside, this also informs my thoughts about, say, terrorism. If you measure terrorism as a risk to the average U.S. citizen it is exceedingly tiny. It is because of this that I can afford to take the attitude that we should keep all our principles intact, from freedom from intrusive government surveillance to not torturing people. While terrorism scares people, it’s an irrational fear for the most part, and that makes it obscene to piss away our most cherished values to fight it. In a state of anarchy or open rebellion or with enemy troops advancing and capturing cities or terrorists actually detonating nukes… well, the margin for generous principles shrinks.
Sundays are for Hockey and the Guelph synchronized swim team
I think my response would go something like this:
“David Brooks says “The only secularism that can really arouse moral motivation and impel action is an enchanted secularism.” That’s funny, I don’t remember being taught that the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution were written by fairies.
My (secular) values and motivations don’t have to be built from the ground up or air-dropped on me by pixie dust, I draw them from the vibrant, multicultural America around me. They include such familiar concepts as freedom of thought and expression. Equality under law and due process. The golden rule (not invented by Christians, you know). That one earns respect through the act of respecting others. That other people’s personal autonomy and right to the pursuit of happiness should be as valued as my own. And so on.
As for the need for a sabbath and spiritual time, I spend most of my free time with my friends and family. Or enjoying a good book or TV program. When the maddening crowd gets too much, I spend time with my own thoughts, on a quiet walk or sipping a beer with my feet up. Of course the things I use to recharge my batteries may not be the same as the things Mr. Brooks uses to recharge his. But the same is true in reverse, too, Mr. Brooks: just because you or others use a Sunday morning church service to recharge your batteries, does not mean that I need it. Darwin said: There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved. You and I, Mr. Brooks, are endless forms of life most beautiful. What you need to make your life complete is not necessarily what I need to make my life complete.”
“Mr. Brooks: just because you or others use a Sunday morning church service to recharge your batteries, does not mean that I need it.”
It has always baffled how religious people like to pretend that church service and other similar activities are anything other than antiquated hobbies and intellectually-numbing entertainment, so much so that they have to actually bully children into adhering to it.
My favourite quote!
“But I can’t avoid the conclusion that the secular writers are so eager to make the case for their creed, they are minimizing the struggle required to live by it.”
Actually, it’s getting rid of the intellectual dishonesty and cognitive dissonance that minimizes the struggle. You don’t need any secular writer for that. All you need is decency.
I was raised without religion. My parents never took me to church or had me go to a class to be indoctrinated. The topic wasn’t really brought up. When I did bring it up — curious about relatives and friends — my recollection is that the answers were mostly educational and I was told it was something I would make my own mind up about some day. In the meantime, I figured that religion was what other families did. We were “freethinkers.”
Whenever I read someone like Brooks whinging on about the ‘need’ to replace religion I realize that both he and I have been taking our lives for granted. He, because he’s assuming that everyone else is as focused on God and transcendent meaning as he is — and me, because I have to struggle to figure out what the hell he’s talking about.
On Sundays I often go for a long mountain bike ride–often with friends. We–and others–call this activity Dirt Church. Our own little officially sanctioned enchanted secular activity.
Dancing, rather than cycling…
Or…
Well, when I was rather younger.
Now…
/@
Only the second of David Brooks’ three claims about secularists (they need to build their own communities) is even remotely partly true, while the first and third strike me as wholly false. But don’t religious people work to build their communities as well? Churches don’t spring up from the ground as a result of prayer. And secularists have already done quite well at building communities, and have been doing so for nearly 2 centuries!!
Claim 3: A day of rest is a good idea, but doing it as a response to a command is not. I do in fact attend a Unitarian Fellowship on Sundays, but not due to any commands from Exodus. It’s due to cultural inheritance.
The first claim (secular individuals have to build their own moral philosophies) is likely unconsciously derived from the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche who really did see traditional values collapsing as a result of the demise of Christian belief (in works like “Beyond Good and Evil”), but he also spoke of a “transvaluation of values”. But as JC has pointed out secularists have been happy to draw on writings of other philosophers for inspiration- they are not working in a vacuum.
This is a man teribly frightened by an empty Sunday.. ‘what are we to do’
Brooke has failed to take the big picture prospective, trapped by ignorance and the past, produced this fearful outlook of no value except it seems for ridicule.
But a valid point has been raised by his myopic reasoning.
Richard Dawkins web site has a page for people who have disengaged with religion and need to share stories and contact to cope with discrimmination. So to this end some secular instruction or if you like guidance, may be appropriate.
I may be the odd man out here, but I would like to give Brooks a long, lingering hug and a machine-gun potch on the tukhes. I genuinely love the man. Sorry.
Signed…*decades long atheist*
To each his/her own.
I don’t understand all the excoriating rebukes of Brooks. I don’t have to agree with everything he writes to admire the man. Brooks is avuncular, wholesome, a mensch, and a tzadik. I have never found him sanctimonious. I guess it is in the interpretation?
No, it’s his sanctimonious and arrogant attitude.
As everyone already said – his entire piece is crap, he knows nothing about what he wrote.
Thank you ! I had the radio on in the car and could only sputter as I heard Brooks being interviewed, along with EJ Dione, I think. Brooks really is insulting and infuriating. They are both religious, tho EJ less patronizing, and NPR is equally contemptible for almost always having one POV – the Faith One. Brooks, 600 years ago, would have sat on the Inquisition Court, dressed in red, and praising himself for saving our souls as he condemned us to the torch or rack.
Yes, I heard that interview this afternoon as well, and could feel the bile rising as Brooks referred to Sam Harris as “a far-out atheist” and then he and Dione started amening back and forth at the conclusion of the interview. Oy vey. Another good reason to stop supporting NPR and their hard-right swerve into accommodation.
“But I can’t avoid the conclusion that the secular writers are so eager to make the case for their creed, they are minimizing the struggle required to live by it.”
What a raving twat.
I have NO trouble living secularly.
My morality comes naturally – I ‘know’ what feels right and wrong – just as I suspect 99.9% of other people do. Their views may have been influenced by what they’ve heard (or been told in church) but it’s not as if any of us other than philosophers or WEIT addicts ever sits down and works out a consistent logical framework for our morals.
For filling my time, I’ve got more than enough stuff to do. I don’t need church-on-sundays to fill up my day, thank you. (I’m lucky that my wife, though she gives Big J his orders for the day every morning, thinks that she can interpret the Bible better than the preachers, so she doesn’t go and I don’t get dragged there.)
Admittedly I spend far too much time on WEIT but that’s my choice.
Mr. Brooks is the very definition of “sanctimonious,” but for this rant we must add “buffoon.” Would love to hear him debate Lewis Black.
“less content with mere benevolence”
What’s wrong with “mere” benevolence? What the world needs now is more benevolence.
Good news bad news joke. First the good news… it isn’t false. Now the bad news… it isn’t true. *rimshot*
Good article. You hit it on the head. But I think you do Sunday sermons a disservice. I used to get irritated and turn of Thought-For-The-Day when it came on the radio in the morning until I began to wonder why it even offended me. That led me to a little revelation of my own: it is great fun to listen and think of it as stand-up comedy.
Reblogged this on The Syed Atheist.