I am reading The God Delusion out of obligation, as one of my mother’s love interests found out that I am a theist and thus gave me the book. While I believe in accepting gifts from others so as not to insult them, I am as much put off by someone giving me a book Witnessing for atheism as I am receiving a book that attempts to prompt a conversion to Christianity, Islam, or Mormonism. Richard Dawkins, whom I personally think is a bit of an ass due to what I have heard about him (and a bizarre mental connection of unknown origin that points to Ayn Rand), makes some very good points about religion. However, he also makes some assumptions about religion that I feel do not actually apply to my faith.
Keep in mind that my notes here are rough. I am only on the second chapter of The God Delusion, but I have enough to say at this point that I find it necessary to comment. Much of this comes from my point of view as a Hellenist, and some comes from an a posteriori philosophy that I have developed in response to prevailing thoughts in science, religion, and everything in between.
Dawkins equates monotheism and polytheism, thinking that using the term “God” as a placeholder for all of them (while devoting most examples to Christianity, the religion he is most familiar with) is a simple way of refuting all. The time he does devote to polytheism is spent discussing its primitivism, something that shows that he is way too influenced by anti-polytheistic Christian propaganda.
The argument Dawkins makes against theism—that one must necessarily believe in a supernatural god who created the universe—doesn’t necessarily work in a polytheistic context, as our mythological texts are inspired by the divine, not dictated by it. They take place in “mythological time,” a place where anything can happen. Hesiod attributes no god as creator of the universe. He begins with Chaos forming and proceeds from there. The relationships the poets create among the gods serves more to explain their relationship to one another than to actually explain a literal family tree. Some myths clarify divine relationships or principles. Some are ways of thinking about cyclical natural events.
I believe in the existence of the Gods. Whether the Gods are really just ideal Forms, mathematical expressions, the Laws of Physics/Nature, or impressive spiritual beings really doesn’t matter, because in the end it still means that we are anthropomorphizing something inhuman in order to symbolically conceptualize it. (Of course, I say this as someone who hasn't committed to any specific Hellenic philosophical tradition.) As Sallustius says, the rituals we perform for them don’t actually benefit the Gods (although the Homeric idea of a deity delighting in the smell of the sacrifice is a pleasing poetic image), but ourselves. Ritual action is universal across all societies and religions. It provides us a framework for looking at the world. Personally, performing a ritual fills me with a sense of gratitude towards the Gods and the universe. It makes me feel connected to a concrete past, and it gives me a sense of real physical community. Unverified personal gnosis could pose a problem depending on what the Gods actually are, but I’m more concerned about whether or not it has a net positive impact (i.e., change of destructive to construtive behavior).
Hellenic Polytheism encompasses such a wide variety of philosophical beliefs that ritual is our primary unifying factor. Stoicism, Cynicism, Neo-Pythagoreanism, Neoplatonism, Orphicism, and other philosophical schools all differ on things—the nature of the soul, the afterlife, the Gods—but all still fall under the same religion. While the debates can get heated, accusing someone of not being a “Real Hellenist” because s/he practices different philosophy is dishonest and, in most cases, wrong, and polytheistic philosophy thrives on dissent and variety. Assuming that everyone believes that the Gods are a specific something only shows a lack of sensitivity to these differing opinions, but it’s an easy mistake to make for someone not conditioned to think from a certain worldview.
Monotheistic faiths, by contrast, believe that there is One True Way. Heresy occurs when one deviates from the accepted ways of thinking about their “One True God.” Au contraire, the Gods of Hellenic Polytheism delight (if one can say that a God is capable of such an emotion) in having worshipers who will actually think for themselves, write their society’s own frakkin’ laws, and govern themselves without needing a cosmic babysitter. The Maxims of Delphi advise us to pray for things that are possible because, unlike Jareth from Labyrinth, the Gods will probably not re-order time, turn the world upside-down, and do it all for us.
Christianity makes blanket assumptions about uniting the Gentiles and Jews under a new religion that will encompass everyone (because the Gentiles were obviously just waiting around for Yahweh to admit them to his super secret happy paradise club—go read Paul’s epistles if you want some serious lols). New Atheism makes the blanket assumption that Christianity is the de facto placeholder for all forms of religious cosmology, and its philosophy seems to me like a reaction to Abrahamic beliefs. I find this somewhat amusing.
To Dawkins’ credit, I do think he reasons through many arguments quite well, and he has illuminated several topics that I previously found obscure. I really enjoy the reference to pantheism as “sexed-up atheism,” although as a Hellenist I don’t quite see why he separates pantheism (which I would consider a philosophical position) from religion—one could quite easily be a Hellenic Polytheist who believes in pantheism as long as s/he performed rituals and adhered to a Hellenic ethical framework. Perhaps pantheism would work less in a secondary religious framework.
Of course, these opinions may change. If I am motivated to provide more commentary on how I read this as a polytheist, I will as soon as I finish it—hopefully soon, as I have barred myself from acquiring new books until I complete the ones that have waited patiently on my shelf for months, and I want to sink my teeth into Iamblichus.
5 responses:
Dawkins is, in essence, a racist. He freely admits his lack of knowledge concerning the religious traditions of non-European peoples - other than Islam. His assumption is that people who aren't white naturally could never possibly have religious ideas that are superior to those of white people. Of course his ignorance of religious traditions from the classical world far exceeds even his ignorance of contemporary non-monotheistic religious traditions such as Buddhism and Hinduism.
Also, Dawkins explicitly rejects the very concept of freedom of religion. In the recent controversy concerning Francis Collins (whose scientific career is far more distinguished that Dawkins) he openly abandoned one of the cornerstones of democracy and called for Collins to be blocked from holding a government appointed position purely on the basis of Collins religion (he is, gasp, a Presbyterian).
I know about Dawkins' rejection of freedom of religion, and the unnecessary smear campaign against Francis Collins. That is the main reason why I dislike him. I would have actually linked to your writings on that (because I followed that primarily through your blog --- thanks for covering it!), only I stupidly forgot to. In his book, however, he states that religion shouldn't be used as a basis of discrimination --- so I wonder how he reconciles his behavior with what he professed, or if he had a change of heart because he thought he was popular enough to get away with denouncing Collins.
Where does Dawkins make racist comments, or what statements can you point to that indicate his belief in white superiority? Did you do a post on this?
I don't think Dawkins is a racist. Maybe you could make a case for him being a cultural imperialist or something like that but he's hardly a racist. Here's "race realist" Steve Sailer tut-tut-ing Dawkins' views on race. Also worth noting is that modern "race realist" types usually think Asians are more intelligent than Europeans.
In any case, I agree with both of you that the New Atheists tend to excessively generalize about religion based on what they know of the Abrahamic religions. Hitchens has an absurd little chapter in his book on how there is "no Eastern solution". Sam Harris is better in that he actually does know a thing or two about Buddhism.
I had a long discussion with atheist author Richard Carrier on paganism and atheism in the comment thread to a post on Taoism. I made some of the same points Annyikha makes in response to Dawkins - pagans are united by shared ritual rather than shared theology, pantheism is compatible with paganism, you don't have to commit to any particular theology to be a pagan etc. Hylomorphic phrases some of the same thoughts in a more elegant way. But I sometimes wonder if we don't concede too much to the atheists with this approach. I certainly wouldn't mind seeing other approaches.
It is one thing for Dawkins to criticize Judeo-Christian religious traditions and their western proponents. It is also, in my opinion, reasonable to generalize from Judeo-Christianity to the other "Abrahamic" religion, Islam. Also, even judged purely on its own merits, it is hardly difficult to make a case for Islam as an inherently violent and intolerant religion.
Even though Dawkins is essentially correct in his assessment of the Monotheistic faiths, his understanding of them is appallingly superficial and his analysis, as a result, is childishly simplistic.
But as soon as Dawkins moves away from the Abrahamic religions his views are transparently eurocentric. Nowhere in any of his writings does Dawkins ever provide a serious discussion of Hinduism and Buddhism, for example. His view of these religions is clearly that they are not to be taken as seriously as Christianity -- in fact, that they are not to be taken seriously at all.
But this goes beyond the issue of religion. According to Dawkins' conception of the so-called "scientific revolution" of the 17th century, the very ability to think rationally was discovered, and only very recently, by white people. Priviledging white people (and their culture) with a superior ability to reason is one of the hallmarks of white racism.
If one looks at the great figures of the scientific revolution, you will find that they were all deeply religious. Isaac Newton was a Hermeticist who studied Astrology and practiced Alchemy. Johannes Kepler was a Pythagorean (and his mother was accused of being a Witch!). Robert Boyle was, like Newton, an avid Alechmist. Joseph Priestly was a Unitarian minister (in fact he was a founding member of that denomination). And it turns out that Galileo learned all about the "experimental method" at his father's knee: his father being a Pythagorean philosopher, and Pythagreans having advocated careful experimentation to elucidate natural phenomenon for over 2000 years in Galileo's time.
Tthe concept of the "scientific revolution" was actually constructed during the 18th century by ideologues who selectively ignored all the Alchemy, Astrology, Pythagoreanism etc. The men who concocted this myth made "modern science" part of the core of their ideological justification for European Imperialism, which at the time was well on its way to turning the majority of the human population into the colonial subjects of a small handful of European "Great Powers". It was important that the people of these conquering nations be seen as inherently superior, and, therefore, the rightful rulers of the world.
In sum, Richard Dawkins has merely added a new wrinkle to Kipling's "White Man's Burden", namely, that in addition to all of the other tasks that must be carried out to civilize the dark savages of the world must be added the need to educate these superstitious idolaters about the one true God: Science.
I shall patiently wait for the second part of this entry after you've read all of The God Delusion. :)
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