It’s nearing the end of the year, but I’m confident that we won’t see an article more wooly-headed than this one before New Year’s Day. So I’m awarding the Most Odious Osculation of Faith (MOOF) Award to the big Atlantic article, “Why God will not die“, by Jack Miles. True, it was published in the December, 2014 issue, but eluded my attention till now, and deserves a quick look, as well as the award, for being worst piece in its genre over the last 12 months.
The subtitle (also the piece’s last sentence), “Science keeps revealing how much we don’t, perhaps can’t, know. Yet humans seek closure, which should make religious pluralists of us all,” tells the tale, and reveals its shaky thesis: we should make room for religion because a.) science doesn’t know everything; in fact, it makes us more ignorant, and b.) we want to know everything (i.e., find “closure”). Ergo: Make Room for God. Although Miles is an atheist, he seems to evince atheism’s worst facet: making bad arguments for osculating the rump of faith.
I’ll be brief, for wading through the piece—and in a venue as respected as The Atlantic—was truly a trial, equivalent to reading the part of the Bible where God tells the Jews, in minute and tedious detail, how to build the Ark of the Covenant. Just two points.
Miles does down science. Here’s his beef: science raises more questions than it answers, so our ignorance increases:
Well, the scientists did demonstrate the existence of the Higgs boson. Peter Higgs won his belated Nobel Prize. And the success of CERN has indeed pointed the way to further research. At the same time, that success has increased our ignorance even more than I had imagined. Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in physics, concluded a 2013 article titled “Physics: What We Do and Don’t Know” with the following rather chastened sentences: “Physical science has historically progressed not only by finding precise explanations of natural phenomena, but also by discovering what sorts of things can be precisely explained. These may be fewer than we had thought.” If science is the pinnacle of human knowing and physics the pinnacle of science, and if physics is deemed crucially limited even by the gifted few—Weinberg’s “we”—who know it best, where does that leave the rest of us?
I have begun to imagine human knowledge and ignorance as tracing a graph of asymptotic divergence, such that with every increase in knowledge, there occurs a greater increase in ignorance. The result is that our ignorance always exceeds our knowledge, and the gap between the two grows infinitely greater, not smaller, as infinite time passes.
While admitting in passing that science does tell us stuff, here Miles makes a specious argument: that science actually increases our ignorance. That’s bogus, as it’s based on a specious definition of increased ignorance as “realizing that something is out there that we don’t fully understand.” But ignorance, according to every definition I’ve seen (one follows), means something like this: “a lack of knowledge, understanding, or education : the state of being ignorant.” So, for example, discovering that there is dark matter and dark energy doesn’t increase our ignorance, as Miles implies, but decreases it, because we’ve discovered a phenomenon that we don’t fully understand. Ignorance simply means that that we lack knowledge, and, as science gives us more knowledge, and, indeed, raises more questions, our ignorance actually decreases.
The fact is that there is in principle a finite quantity of human ignorance, comprising every fact about the universe and about other universes, and that ignorance remains ignorance whether or not we realize there are new questions we can’t answer. Ergo, everything we find out actually decreases our ignorance. Miles last paragraph above is meant to denigrate science for actually increasing our ignorance, therefore providing an increasing gap that can be filled with—guess what?—faith and religion.
Miles makes room for religion. If you can fully understand the following, you’re a better person than I (I’m counting on our resident Faith Interpreter Sastra to help out here):
Yet if a faith of some sort is inevitable, why should the NSRN not devise something that suits it? Its language may teeter at times between assumptions of superiority and professions of humility, but so does conventionally religious language. Professionally, I judge that its work complements rather than undermines the work that my colleagues and I have done on our anthology. [The Norton Anthology of World Religions.]
Am I kidding myself? No doubt, but let’s be clear: there is a component of self-kidding—a suspension of disbelief—in even the most serious human enterprises. (Does anyone really believe that all men—and women—are created equal? But recognizing the delusional premise of American democracy needn’t undermine our faith in it.) The element of play is particularly, though by no means uniquely, prominent in religion.
I think Miles doesn’t quite understand that “equal” here means “equal in rights, opportunities and respect,” not “equal in behavior, strength, and other traits”. But putting that aside, this is a weak-minded justification of faith, further undermined by adding the postmodern notion of “play” (jouer), which in fact is NOT prominent in religion. If Catholicism is playful, it sure has fooled me!
And do you get this?:
Science is immortal, but you are not. History is immortal: Earth could be vaporized, and on some unimaginably distant planet on some unimaginably remote future date, another civilization’s historians could still choose to use the terrestrial year as a unit of time measurement. But where does that leave you? You have a life to live here and now. “Tell me,” the poet Mary Oliver asks, “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” We never truly know how to reply to that challenge, do we, since more knowledge—the knowledge we do not have—could always justify holding current plans in abeyance just a little longer. But when life refuses to wait any longer and the great game begins whether you have suited up or not, then a demand arises that religion—or some expedient no more fully rational than religion—must meet. You’re going to go with something. Whatever it is, however rigorous it may claim to be as either science or religion, you’re going to know that you have no perfect warrant for it. Yet, whatever you call it, you’re going to go with it anyway, aren’t you? Pluralism at its deepest calls on you to allow others the closure that you yourself cannot avoid.
The tenets of faith might not be true, but you need something to get through life. It may be irrational (and he implies in the next sentence that science is no more rational than religion), but it gives us closure. I’m not quite sure what it means, but I don’t turn to science out of fear of mortality. I turn to science because it makes my present life much richer.
And yes, I allow people the pluralism of being religious, but I don’t allow them freedom from criticism for embracing ridiculous and unsustainable propositions. “Just believe something” is pretty crappy advice, especially coming from a nonbeliever. 
“so our ignorance increases:”
I’m skeptical that anyone would actually reach this conclusion by using the evidence that Miles cites. I find it more plausible that he had a conclusion that he wanted to reach and scrounged around for some reasoning to support it.
Yes, because if you follow this line of reasoning then people who never leave their home town, never get any advanced education, never read a book or talk to anyone who disagrees with them are less ignorant than someone who travels, educates themselves, reads regularly, and mingles with diverse communities. They will be more sure of themselves because they know of fewer options.
He isn’t talking about “ignorance.” He’s talking about “humility.”
And then he goes on and gets things which superficially look like humility mixed up with a genuine humility, one which is not only modest, but honest.
Where on earth does the very tired idea that when you don’t know something, it’s perfectly respectable to make something up and expect it to be believed along with the factual parts? Presumably a defect in the way our brains work.
Just the title of his piece, Why God Does Not Die, creates a difficulty for most atheists because it’s hard to die if you never lived. Are we sure Mr. Mills is what he says he is?
His delusions about science may be overcome by his delusions about history. We could get picky and ask who said men and women equal, but lets just look at what he is most likely reading from. The Declaration of Independence is the document, certainly not the Constitution. Jefferson did say men in reference to equality and he was talking about all the men he knew. He did not include property, which was the definition of slaves at the time. And again, this false belief that a democracy was being created? Please try Republic if you can.
Jefferson was working on a letter to the King of England, not writing down his recipe for a government. How do some folks just fling this stuff around as if if were factual.
I’m sure the paragraph about the NSRN (Non-religion and secularity research network)is a rewording of the ‘atheists are just as bad as religionists’ argument. He likes the idea they both have the same problem but he’s not sure it is really true.
From what I gathered his whole essay could be condensed to. Science gives you knowledge and opens you to your own ignorance, religion gives you meaning and certainty (closure), so do as much as you can of both, and buy my book. He seems like a nice guy, but I disagree with everything he concluded. We don’t need closure, ignorance is good fun.
Unfortunate.
I read his book, God: A Biography right after I realized I wasn’t a believer any more. It really helped to seal the deal for me as it was a fast romp through the Bible which treated “God” as a character with a life story told in the Bible. From this view he emphasized the character of God (bumbling at best, horrible fiend at worst) and the constantly changing nature of that character. It’s an excellent book, sure to help religious fence sitters move on over to disbelief, and I highly recommend it.
Yes Gluon, that was a good book, recommended indeed. It showed that -if the Bible books are put in the right order (Tenach)- God evolves from an intervening, psychopathic butcher into a more fatherly figure, pensioned off as it where, who is only talked about. (Which in turn, I feel, segues nicely into a God that evaporates completely).
I’m very disappointed he also wrote this drivel, was he plastered (or so) when he wrote it?
The effect of scientific discovery is (as Hitchens observed with regard to education) to more clearly delineate our areas of ignorance. This is not an increase in ignorance; it is its opposite — an increase in information, under any Shannon or Kolmogorov formulation of that measure.
Miles sure milks his non-sequiturs for all they’re worth. Speaking of Ark-building, I wonder if his sophistry can be measured in cubits.
Clearly this is the fault of the editors of the Atlantic. Miles is just huckstering and they let him stand on their soapbox.
Donald Rumsfeld of all people might be able to explain to him that science provides a means to move things from the ‘unknown unknowns’ pile to the ‘known unknowns’ pile.
And (thence) to the “known knowns”!
Just what I was thinking.
/@
Like Bill Clinton with “is”, Rumsfeld’s point is more or less true, though irrelevant to the purpose at the time. Ain’t learning from politicians and bureaucrats grant? 😉
His quote from Steven Weinberg makes one wonder: If we now know that some of the ideas we once had were wrong, isn’t that knowing something new?
Effectively Jack Miles is saying about religion what Woody Allen (or his character Isaac Singer) says about relationships at the conclusion of “Annie Hall”, except that for many the crazy element of relationships is in the long run easier to comprehend
Singer/Allen at the conclusion of “Annie Hall”
“You know, this guy goes to his psychiatrist and says, “Doc, my brother’s crazy. He thinks he’s a chicken.” And the doctor says, “Well why don’t you turn him in?” The guy says, “I would, but I need the eggs.” Well, I guess that’s pretty much now how I feel about relationships– you know, they’re totally irrational and crazy and absurd, but, I guess we keep going through it because most of us need the eggs.”
Yes. And the joke is funny because of the surprise incongruities. First, that you can get eggs from a man who thinks he’s a chicken. And second, that love fits that analogy. It doesn’t really fit in that way. “Crazy” is a loaded concept.
There’s a lot I agreed with in the article. But I see a lot of equivocation going on and that eventually outweighs its merits. It bothers me that Miles’ eloquence and erudition basically boils down to “religion may rely on false premises — but love is irrational too and we need love!” Only he’s not joking.
And as to the spiritual sustenance offered by religion, the joke juste is from the same movie, the one about the two women discussing the fare being served from the kitchen of a Catskills resort:
A well deserved MOOF Award.
Miles’ sequel: Why Fairies Do Not Die When I Stomp on Them
And the fully anticipated, super-massive trilogy: Why Unicorns Never Die When Roasted over Chestnuts
A pathological need for “closure” only attests to one’s inability to cope with ambiguity and impermanence.
Indeed. I’ve yet to read of any true believer that can explain how their ineffable God, moving in mysterious ways, nevertheless provides ‘closure’.
Unless you are happy to define ‘faith’ as ‘applied ignorance’.
Your last line fits the vast majority of evangelicals and fundamentalists to a T. I presume you’ve seen bumper stickers such as “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.”
“You see, one thing is, I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.” — Richard Feynman
/@
You need to get out to some bingo halls or CYO football games or Knight’s of Columbus open-bar nights, Jerry. That’s the coalface where Catholicism American-style is practiced. For the majority of American Catholics, what happens in Church on Sunday is merely the toll you’ve gotta pay on the drive to the picnic.
Science can’t tell us everything but why would anyone think that God is the answer to the stuff that it can’t (Yet). For every discovery made to date the answer has never turned out to be anything to do with God, why would anyone think that it will in the future?
Wasn’t it Aron Ra who said “Science doesn’t know everything; religion doesn’t know anything?”
I don’t even understand what this guy is talking about. I’m not even sure why I’m commenting. It all sounds like a load of bullsh*t to me.
Good call Jerry!
Sub. A basic rule for any writer: if you want people to read what you write, try to make it readable! My life is not long enough to waste it on gibberish.
I couldn’t agree more!
FYI
http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/read/2005/11/01/the-perimeter-of-ignorance
Might be where that idea came from.
That’s an excellent essay; thanks.
Uh huh. Okay. I’ll play.
Throughout history people have wondered and asked serious questions about what is true and real. We get together, we reason, we talk, we test. We ask big questions with answers which matter to us. Does God exist, for example, is one such question.
So — does God exist?
No, let’s ask a better question: why do people believe in God?
Does God exist?
No, let’s ask why people WANT to believe in God.
Does God exist?
Look, believing in God isn’t going to go away so why don’t we explore all the ways folks manage to believe in God?
Does God exist?
If we look at it sideways doesn’t it seem like believing in God is a lot like having values, hopes, and ideals?
Does God exist?
Frankly, shouldn’t we be noticing that all conclusions are a lot like believing in God?
Does God exist?
In the modern world isn’t it important to extend hospitality to beliefs we do not share?
Does God exist?
Anything is possible so why can’t we just stop there and pretend that everything is equally possible?
Does God exist?
Wow, do you see all the pretty religions and all the nice people in them?
Does God exist?
Aren’t human beings just naturally irrational, so who are we to judge?
Does God exist?
Why don’t we instead consider that people don’t really care about that, there are deeper issues at stake here?
Okay, you get the idea. I could go on and on. But luckily I don’t have to, thanks to Jack Miles.
A dozen or so slam dunks there!
fan-freakin-tastic comment, Sastra.
Now we’re getting somewhere.
It would be prudent, you would think, if ‘they’ answered the first question, first. Well parsed.
What an absurd argument. It’s like saying saving money decreases net worth if we find out that there’s more money in circulation than we thought there was. I’m not even sure this analogy is apt; the idea that obtaining knowledge about specifics that we don’t know is in fact increasing our ignorance is simply a contradiction. We didn’t know what we don’t know about dark energy or dark matter before either. How can this be an increase in ignorance?
It’s on par with saying that education makes you dumber, because it increasingly exposes you to the gaps in your knowledge.
The corollary is that remaining in ignorance and not being exposed to gaps in your knowledge makes you less ignorant. When framed this way, the argument is even less coherent. Ignorance makes you less ignorant…come again?
As Bertrand Russell said:
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wise people so full of doubts.”
Some may characterize the views of Miles and other accommodationists as a prime example of the “little people” argument: most people can’t handle the harsh truths of reality so they fall back on the delusions of religion as the mechanism for getting through life without a complete psychological breakdown. To think of the great majority of humans throughout the world as “little people” is indeed insulting, but leaving the label aside, what if the essence of the argument is correct? Is it accurate to say that most people cannot get through life without a belief in the irrational, i.e., religion? I cannot answer this question, probably nobody can, but I cannot rule out the possibility that it may be true. Yes, atheism is growing in certain parts of the world, but I am not convinced that religion will not be the primary viewpoint about the nature of the universe for many decades, perhaps centuries to come for the vast majority of people. Maybe education will eventually turn the tide, but I am not convinced of even this.
A question: When people are raised in families which aren’t religious but which do promote a strong humanist approach to life — do the children just naturally become religious when they get older? Or do they tend to do what most people do, and follow along with what they were raised with?
I suspect the latter. That may not throw much light on how we can get there — but I think it helps us figure out whether it’s possible to get there.
Do humans as a species have an innate need for supernatural consolation … or is that largely cultural? Whenever we’ve asked questions about what’s innate to a race or species, we look at what happens when we shift the environment for a test group of individuals.
Children who are never told that they live in a world of unyielding meaningless despair if they DON’T live forever are unlikely to come to that conclusion on their own. I agree, I think Miles is making a Little People argument. He’s just trying to deny that he’s thinking of them as Little People by going on and on about gee, aren’t we all little people in some way, etc. Way to change the subject.
As the Jesuits might say:
“Give us the (boy) child until seven years old and we will show you the (man)adult.”
The level of dignified respect you muster for the idea couldn’t look more out of place if the idea was a chemtrail conspiracy. What reason have we been given that believing in a religion is all that prevents even a handful of regular people from going into a breakdown? There are several holes with the idea.
For starters, I can’t rule out the “possibility” that fairies exist. However, “possibility” is such a low bar to set that the only things that fail it are dead on arrival. It hardly warrants respect for an idea.
Secondly, it would be hard to explain both religion’s ubiquity and persistence without invoking both historical conquests and non-genetic inheritance. That’s the best way to explain the spread of Christianity globally, Islam in North Africa and the Middle East, and so on. It would be hard to invoke genetic differences between atheists and believers, especially considering many atheists were former believers themselves. Invoking a psychological crutch concept is needless to explain the difference; it’s not as if atheists are somehow less aware of reality than the believers, or face less arduous lives.
Moreover, if the theory were true, then we’d expect more atheistic and secular societies to be among the most ill-adjusted in the world, basically because they’re throwing away the crutches. Not only is this untrue, but precisely the opposite is the case. Social dysfunction increases along with societal religiosity.
Even if you interpret that as evidence of a crutch phenomenon, there’s independent reason to think that it’s more likely religions simply take advantage of the unfortunate when their defences aren’t strong – note, for example, the emphasis on childhood indoctrination, and on the recruitment tactics of cults – rather than genuinely giving them a crutch. Heck, the closest to a “crutch” is almost certainly social connection, since most evidence suggests that this a) is protective against psychological problems, and b) co-occurs with many religions.
Thirdly, religion largely gets its ubiquity and power from settling into a young mind at an early age and warping it hard; ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology are all casualties to the religion du jour’s absurd beliefs, beaten into shape the better to accommodate it. The people who claim to need it for a crutch are the people who had their legs broken by it beforehand.
So, on evidential and theoretical grounds, the argument is unlikely to be right, but even if it were somehow the case that Joe Bloggs becomes a dribbling, suicidal moron because no one told him about god – or became one because, after believing there was a god, was told there wasn’t – so what? Anyone breaking down because they’ve been deprived of mental opium is certainly not someone I’d expect to see outside of a state mental hospital.
For that is what it would hypothetically be. It would prove to be one of the most serious psychological syndromes ever discovered, and would still need to be challenged. If that’s the case the religious have going for them, it’s hard to see what they have to boast about.
Certainly, there’s nothing in the religious toolkit that isn’t better served elsewhere, as awe-inspired scientists, secular ethicists, and non-religious philosophers routinely demonstrate. However much the religious claim that Bad Things Will Happen if religion is abandoned, there’s neither evidential nor theoretical justification for taking them seriously.
And the beliefs certainly don’t become a whit daffier, so criticism of them remains intact. Basically, nothing changes.
You stated the following: “What reason have we been given that believing in a religion is all that prevents even a handful of regular people from going into a breakdown?” This implies that you seem to believe that I argued that religion is necessary to prevent a psychological breakdown. This, in fact, is not what I said.
What I have tried to say, perhaps not clearly, is that most people who once “infected” by religion, for any reason, would suffer severe stress and anxiety if they seriously confronted the assertion that their most cherished beliefs are total nonsense. I contend that the notion of giving up religion is very difficult and stressful for even those who manage to do it. Most religious people simply will not even consider abandoning the faith because just the thought of doing so is stressful. Several commenters on this site who have abandoned religion expressed the difficulty doing so. Of course, some people can go “cold turkey” and give up religion without a second thought. It is quite possible that many of these people were only marginally religious in the first place.
So, I am not saying that most people need religion for their psychological welfare. Quite to the contrary, people who were never religious do quite fine. What I am saying is that most people who are religious can only quit the habit with great difficulty and those who actually do so largely find the process a psychological strain. In other words, people would be better off if they never had religion in the first place.
Ah, I see. In that case, I am sorry for grossly misinterpreting your comment, and of underestimating your case. In which case, I retract my comments and say I agree with you, with added emphasis on my “crutches” and “broken legs” line. It disgusts me what religion does to people’s thinking, though that’s not an excuse for missing your comment’s point so badly.
So in other words, would you rather believe total bullshit and lies, than recognise the fact that you don’t actually know everything? Then religion is just for you!
Yes, no more having to deal with the fact that you don’t know what makes the seasons work, Goddidit. Are you wondering why your leg dropped off after that dog bit you a while back? No need for advanced medicine, Goddidit.
It works for the little questions, it works for the big questions, it works for all the questions – religion. Okay it has invariably turned out to be the wrong answer every time somebody has actually checked, but it beats having to admit that maybe, just maybe, you might not know every damn thing.
You even get to call those smug atheists arrogant, what with their questions and actually trying to figure things out, because they don’t believe in God, and therefore they don’t believe you know everything!
Try religion today!
What Miles is proposing is a misbegotten version of entropy applicable to scientific knowledge — ignorance always increases over time.
so what he’s really saying is that which we invent is more comforting than what we discover.
people are equal by the only measure that matters – alive.
social systems are cultural products and vary widely
science turns out the same no matter where you are on earth
so if a person wants a degree of certainty – science is the path
Good Professor — and you get the Most Excellent Quote of the Week award for this:
“Just believe something” is pretty crappy advice, especially coming from a nonbeliever.
I love it!
‘Science keeps revealing how much we don’t, perhaps can’t, know.’
‘Perhaps can’t’? In principle? So science ‘perhaps’ is ‘revealing’ what it can’t know?
“I think Miles doesn’t quite understand that “equal” here means “equal in rights, opportunities and respect,” not “equal in behavior, strength, and other traits”.”
I can’t help but suspect he does know it, or would realize it immediately if he pondered it for a moment, but has instead opted to practice “suspension of disbelief” — thus proving his thesis!
(I’ve always wondered, incidentally, why people don’t just call it what it is — belief, rather than the tautologous suspension of disbelief. There’s no difference.)
One sentence from Hitchens should clear up this fellow’s muddled thinking:
“Religion does not say there’s a mystery; it says it has an answer to a mystery.”
“History is immortal: Earth could be vaporized, and on some unimaginably distant planet on some unimaginably remote future date, another civilization’s historians could still choose to use the terrestrial year as a unit of time measurement.”
I’m sorry…WTF?
indeed. this seems to be the usual spreading of bull excrement to cover up how baseless his claims are. Why indeed would anyone do this EVER? and if they did?
Glad I wasn’t the only one who WTF-ed there.
Desperate times calling for desperate measures, I guess.
He’s right. It’s part of human nature to still want closure after the horse has bolted.
(I mean to imply that, as the saying goes, it’s pointless shutting the gate after the horse has bolted.)
In Britain, “stable door” is more common than “gate”. And seasonally apt!
/@
“Does anyone really believe that all men—and women—are created equal?”
Atlantic! Have you no editors? This is 6th grade poly-sci/history, fer krisake.
the article referenced is one of the times that I believe some bluntness is in order and there is no reason to spare such an author’s feelings.
It is impossible for the discovery of more facts to increase the extent of ignorance. I would think this is self-evident.
On the other hand, I suppose technology could be said to increase our ignorance, since it is constantly extending the quantity of gadgets and processes for us to be ignorant about. I’m not sure that’s germane to the discussion though.
cr
Why some atheist fail at being one. Perhaps he could enlighten us.
In one way what he says is true. Ignorance does increase upon discovery of new truths…..for those that don’t, or can’t, understand the new truths. While knowledge in general increases, thereby shrinking ignorance generally, perhaps that’s inverse for the poorly educated. The truths that science uncovers is always at the deepest levels of understanding. Our most brilliant minds are the ones leading the way to discovery. For Average Joe, whose education has been too remiss, those truths are perhaps hard to comprehend, adding to Joe’s level of ignorance. I have a cousin who steadfastly claims that whoever came up with The Big Bang is a charlatan. Just the manner in which he makes his statement reveals the depths of his ignorance on the subject. He is similarly ignorant on the topic of evolution, and, as can be expected, quite staunchly behind the fantastical claims of Christianity. Proper education, as far and as wide as it can possibly be administered, is the key to reducing that area, that type, of ignorance.
Of course this is NOT what Miles is saying. I am not agreeing with him in any way. I’m just using his short sightedness as a spark for my own thoughts on ignorance.
Surely any intelligent person who writes this sort of thing is angling for a Templeton grant.