Genosse Kotze
18th August 2007, 10:04
I was watching a debate about religion on youtube which involved that scoundrel Christopher Hitchens, and since I loath him so much I felt that I just had to come up with an argument against what he was saying, even though he is, like it or not, a fellow atheist. So, there was a point where they were all discussing the history of the theism vs. atheism debate, where they brought up all the past attempts to prove God's existence (the Cartesian one, the 'logical proof' Leibnitz wrote down, etc.), how atheists have countered these and how theists now have finally given up trying to prove God's existence as an argument they can't ever win, and have retreated to "relying on faith" as a means of shutting down all debate on the matter. Even though this is a position which can't be disproved especially, since it doesn't even try and present any cogent argument for belief in God, Hitchens said that religion should be scrapped anyway since, at its core, it demands the sacrifice of people's reason. And it is here where I got the idea that religious people have a potentially great counter-argument in existentialism of all places, which I'm going to try and outline here.
First off, I have to give a brief run-down of Jean Paul Sartre's characterization of our existence. Sartre's central idea here is that, when it comes to humans, 'existence precedes essence'. So, there is no 'human nature' and we weren't designed for anything specific, as a stapler is created from an idea first, and only comes into being from this idea. Since there isn't any ideal for us to conform to in this already terrifying universe, that makes matters even more terrifying, because now there is absolutely nothing preventing other people from going on a killing spree or whatever, because it wouldn't even be wrong since it doesn't run counter to what being human means (it means nothing). So, in short, we are all totally free and it totally sucks!
This is usually the place where one of my left-wing atheist comrades would come in and say that this is why religion was invented: to control people from doing all sorts of crazy things like killing their bosses and making revolution. I think Sartre personally would have gone along with that, but he also said that reason is esentially no different, and, ironically, refers to it as 'bad faith'. The argument goes as follows: since we get cast into this dystopian existence without having any say in the matter, because people, once in existence, are totally free to do whatever and there is nothing stopping them from being as violent and as crazy as they want, we have good reason to be scared shitless! Since this freedom we are all condemned to experience is so horrible and frightening we need to feel comforted and want to believe it isn't so. The solution? We came up with the idea that people are reasonable. That way we can now walk down the street without fear of getting abducted and living through the plot of the next Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie because we have faith that people are reasonable and don't do that sort of thing, even in spite of countless examples of people's actions to the contrary.
So, when Christopher Hitchens says that religion demands the sacrifice of people's reason, a possible theistic way of rephrasing that could be that religion demands the sacrifice of an illusion :o . Certainly Christians, Muslims, etc. would have a tremendously difficult (down right impossible) time rectifying their beliefs about existence with those of Sartre's, but theism and existentialism aren't mutually exclusive. God may very well exist, but it just doesn't matter. We could even be certain of God's existence, but it wouldn't change our plight of freedom in the least because we still wouldn't know anything about the nature of God, of our own nature, more importantly, or what God would want from us.
If you're still not going for it, at least grant me that, during your next argument with a Christian, it would be refreshing to hear him/her quoting from Sartre than from the book of Revelations!
First off, I have to give a brief run-down of Jean Paul Sartre's characterization of our existence. Sartre's central idea here is that, when it comes to humans, 'existence precedes essence'. So, there is no 'human nature' and we weren't designed for anything specific, as a stapler is created from an idea first, and only comes into being from this idea. Since there isn't any ideal for us to conform to in this already terrifying universe, that makes matters even more terrifying, because now there is absolutely nothing preventing other people from going on a killing spree or whatever, because it wouldn't even be wrong since it doesn't run counter to what being human means (it means nothing). So, in short, we are all totally free and it totally sucks!
This is usually the place where one of my left-wing atheist comrades would come in and say that this is why religion was invented: to control people from doing all sorts of crazy things like killing their bosses and making revolution. I think Sartre personally would have gone along with that, but he also said that reason is esentially no different, and, ironically, refers to it as 'bad faith'. The argument goes as follows: since we get cast into this dystopian existence without having any say in the matter, because people, once in existence, are totally free to do whatever and there is nothing stopping them from being as violent and as crazy as they want, we have good reason to be scared shitless! Since this freedom we are all condemned to experience is so horrible and frightening we need to feel comforted and want to believe it isn't so. The solution? We came up with the idea that people are reasonable. That way we can now walk down the street without fear of getting abducted and living through the plot of the next Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie because we have faith that people are reasonable and don't do that sort of thing, even in spite of countless examples of people's actions to the contrary.
So, when Christopher Hitchens says that religion demands the sacrifice of people's reason, a possible theistic way of rephrasing that could be that religion demands the sacrifice of an illusion :o . Certainly Christians, Muslims, etc. would have a tremendously difficult (down right impossible) time rectifying their beliefs about existence with those of Sartre's, but theism and existentialism aren't mutually exclusive. God may very well exist, but it just doesn't matter. We could even be certain of God's existence, but it wouldn't change our plight of freedom in the least because we still wouldn't know anything about the nature of God, of our own nature, more importantly, or what God would want from us.
If you're still not going for it, at least grant me that, during your next argument with a Christian, it would be refreshing to hear him/her quoting from Sartre than from the book of Revelations!