I’m about done with Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. It’s got some flaws (including a number of errors, none of which — so far, at least — have been central or very important to his case), but it’s also one of the best books on religion I’ve read in a while. Hitchens is a really fine stylist (he seems to write very quickly, which accounts both for his wit and his occasional errors of fact) and his assault gives no quarter. He addresses metaphysics, arguments from design, textual integrity and history, arguments from utility and morality, and more. I recommend this book especially to the religious; if anyone can keep his or her faith in revealed religion unshaken and intact after reading this book, then, well, it’s a testament to something.
I’ll write something more thoughtful on the topic later tonight or tomorrow night.
“God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.”
Nothing offensive about that title, other than it slams the 80% of the population who are theists and their beliefs.
But everyone chokes down their own set of sacred cows. You can tell the pretentious by how they whine about how some use catsup instead of mustard.
T-Bear: That’s a title that promises what you get. I haven’t read the Hithcens book, but it’s pretty clear it presents a case against religion. It’s a provocative title, but it’s not a stupid title, like one that connects an organic food store with the holocaust. Whether God exists or not can be argued. (Maybe you disagree, but most theologians think it is an arguable point.) But whether Whole Foods can be connected to the totalitarian temptation is not in the same league. Or am I missing something?
It’s not clear, anyway, what you’re getting at. Are you saying that Goldberg’s title is exactly like Hitchens’ title? Is it equally provocative? If so, the sub-subtitle should be “How Whole Foods Poisons Everything.” But then we’d want some evidence, wouldn’t we? Whether the evidence that Hitchens presents against religion is convincing or not I cannot (yet) say, but I doubt that that’s the kind of case that Goldberg has in mind (or not in mind, since the title seems thoughtless). Just what is the connection between Whole Foods and totalitarianism?
To assert religion poisons EVERYTHING is just as outrageous as linking Whole Foods to national socialism. But you will miss something, as you clearly dislike Goldberg. Whatever, it’s still hamburger.
Why should one ‘test’ faith and how do you do that?
Faith as in ‘Glauben’ means: â??Glauben ist nicht wissen, jedoch für wahr halten.â?? That is the whole point of faith… You probably mean, one should ‘test religious texts’. I am no theologian, but that is an entirely different approach. NV
Like some others, T-Bear has trouble getting a few simple things straight. No one has suggested dislike an author. I don’t dislike Jonah Goldberg. I don’t even know him. We met once and he was very civil. His book might even be wonderful. I might agree with much of it. It’s the connection of Whole Foods to national socialism that’s bizarre. It’s presented in the title as a part of “the totalitarian temptation.” Huh?
As to Hitchens’ claims, he actually defends them. You can read his book and agree or disagree. He doesn’t imply anything needlessly dumb, as in “The Totalitarian Temptation from Hegel to Whole Foods.” Really.
Nathalie’s clarification is helpful. I suppose what I meant was not to “test one’s faith,” but to test how much one would prefer faith to reason, when the two are, or seem to be, in conflict. That’s the test that Hitchens poses and even the faithful might want to take him up on it.
Truly religious people test their faith every single day.
I like Hitchens’ writing style but I have some doubts about his capacity for this sort of argument. I guess the only way to be fair would be to read the book (which I haven’t) so I’ll try to do that sometime in the future.
AAA,
I think you’d be surprised. A friend encouraged me to read it and I was skeptical of a book with such an ambitious title. I’m not impressed with the usual “religion has killed more people than X” books. It’s a typical atheistic conceit that religious toleration came with the Enlightenment, which they interpret as science and therefore as atheism. That just ain’t true, as serious historians have pointed out; the movement for religious toleration arose within religion, as it were. As I pointed out to my friend, the really serious mass murderers were atheists — Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot. But Hitchens isn’t writing just another anti-religion screed, nor does he suggest that if only religion were rejected, everyone would be wise and good. This book is more serious than that.
So if you criticize a book, you dislike the author? Now there’s a grown-up atitude!
Yes, the worst twentieth century mass murderers were atheists. But that doesn’t really prove anything about atheism. Linking those dictators under the atheist heading commits the Jonah Goldberg fallacy. Just because they were all atheists doesn’t mean atheism motivated them to commit murder (of course it does prove that religion is not a necessary element in mass murder, but I don’t think anyone makes that claim).
As Hitchens says when confronted with that argument, I can’t recall a society organized along the ideas of Jefferson and Paine that ended up a murderous dictatorship. In other words, it isn’t religion per se that’s the problem, it’s belief without evidence; it’s faith (e.g., in God, in the proletariat, in the Aryan race, in Reason); dogmatism.
So while those dictators you mention were atheists (I’ve heard Hitler might have believed in some perverse, Aryanized Christianity, but I would definitely defer to your judgment on that matter), that fact is no more relevant than that they all enjoyed ice cream or opera, if it didn’t motivate them to commit murder.
That said, it might be that atheism was a contributing factor in their respective decisions to slaughter millions. If so, though, that point ought to proved as a separate point, rather than implied in the mere mention that those monsters were atheists, too.
Finally, I think Hayek makes a great point re: the role of religion in the last chapter of The Fatal Conceit. I don’t think any of the major contemporary atheist authors has grappled seriously with it yet, and I’d like to see that from them (perhaps I’ll raise the issue at the Atheist Alliance International convention in September, at which they’re all scheduled to speak).
Greg’s right and I didn’t mean to suggest that the atheism of the great dictators was the cause of their murderousness. It just didn’t stop them and tells us that religion is not the source of all evil. So atheists shouldn’t be smug and think, as many of them seem to do, that the rise of disbelief swept away the horrors of persecution.
Hayek has an interesting take on some — but only some — of the teachings of some — but only some — religions: that some of those teachings are “symbolic truths,” that is, they’re not true as statements of fact, but the actions that they support are productive of good results. It’s an interesting approach, but definitely not theistic.
Isn’t that why they call it “faith” because it is so very unreasonable, hence Kierkegaard’s leap of faith? I’ve tried pure reason (Philosophy Major – I learned we don’t really know any ultimate truths); I’ve tried atheism (that was miserable); I went with agnosticism (which is the only reasonable choice if you ask me); but I choose faith because I love the community.
As my dear husband says, “Sure, religions have done a lot harm, so have the non-religious groups, but at least religions are institutions which are dedicated in name to doing what is good.” Of course, we’re thinking of Episcopalians. Maybe they don’t count.
Oh, and maybe faith and religion don’t have much to do with each other.
I’d certainly agree that faith is unreasonable, but it doesn’t matter what we “call it,” because, at root, it’s nothing but believing a truth claim without any evidence to support that claim. Believing Jesus was divine is akin to believing Zeus controlled the thunder and lightning; that Osiris controlled the Nile; that Muhammad is the only true prophet of Allah; or the Aztec “Legend of the Five Suns” explains the origin of life. Each is, as far as I can tell, equally unsupported by evidence, yet all are, or have been, fervently believed by many people as ardently as the others.
If you happened upon a modern sect of Aztecs engaged in a human sacrifice ceremony, and had the temerity to ask why they engaged in such barbarism, I doubt you’d excuse their behavior because it represents a “leap of faith” that everything that sustains life on Earth comes from the severed body parts of the gods. Yet they would believe that as much as the average Catholic believes in transubstantiation. Assuming you couldn’t convince these maniacs that they were acting unethically for whatever reason (e.g., you explain the separateness of persons and they laugh at you), how could you convince them to stop the madness? I think your best bet would be to take some bright, disinterested citizen, and explain that we’ve figured out how precipitation works, why rivers flood, how plants grow, and that the origin of life isn’t the reincarnation of sacrificed gods, but evolution by natural selection. In other words, the best way to cure barbarism motivated by religious ignorance is to replace that ignorance with truths supported by evidence.
Finally, not all religions are “institutions which are dedicated in name to doing what is good.” Some are dedicated to filling jeeps with explosives and trying to blow up as many women as possible.
So then are all religions, faiths, spiritual beliefs to be dismissed because some promote unfathomable cruelty? Or just the “miraculous” parts that have no evidence to support the claim. I’m not entirely clear about what you are saying.
Also, would it help to learn what each of us means when we say religion? I use it to mean named sects, such as Baptist, Lutheran, Islam, Reformed Judaism, etc. I do not use it to refer to the deeper underlying ideas of faith and spirituality.
All religions, faiths, and spiritual beliefs are to be dismissed, but not because some promote cruelty. They are to be dismissed because they are all infected by the same sad trait, to wit, that their central tenets be accepted without evidence of their truth.
Of course, to the extent that those religions confirm or promote non-supernatural moral teachings (e.g., the golden rule), then they are welcome to join the discussion of how humans ought to behave. But insofar as they claim that they have access to universal truths that others do not, by virtue of their having the ear of the one true God, they ought to be ignored (at best), because they truly have nothing to bring to the table.
I am wary of any sentence that begins “All”.
I am wary of any sentence that begins “All”.
Dear Greg N.
Your statement “not all religions are “institutions which are dedicated in name to doing what is good.” Some are dedicated to filling jeeps with explosives and trying to blow up as many women as possible” is simply false. That some radical elements do blow women and children by no means assumes violent character of Islam. It is not more violent then any other world religion. And the statement is not more valid than “Americans (British, French, German, Japanese, etc.) are villains because there are murderers, drug dealers or rapists among them”.
What made you assume I was referring to Islam?
But now that you mention it, you might want to read this “confession” from a former radical Muslim on his motivations for committing violence. At risk of giving away the ending, he (and the other fanatics he knew) were motivated entirely by their religious convictions, which, to them, required such barbarism.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=465570&in_page_id=1770
Greg, you write “[All religions, faiths, and spiritual beliefs] are to be dismissed because they are all infected by the same sad trait, to wit, that their central tenets be accepted without evidence of their truth.”
I’m here to let you know that not only is that no way to live, that’s no way to THINK. What evidence shows us that it is wrong to murder a person? What evidence shows us that there are unchanging natural laws? What evidence makes us know that the world has a separate existence outside of our minds? What evidence lets us know that humans canâ??t acquire truth without evidence?
In our personal and intellectual lives, we all take things for granted without any evidence in support of our views. You do it too.
Logic isnâ??t granted its truth from evidence. Why should theology be any different? And is not inner sense the only source of “evidence” for questions not about the “outer world” (think “Wow, the ‘Tao Te Ching’ rings true within me!” or “I felt the Holy Spirit warming my soul!”)?
I don’t want to disagree with someone with a Jesus Lizard icon on their myspace page (especially because I’m listening to Karp RIGHT NOW!), but I must.
While you’re right that we can’t point to some piece of physical evidence that “proves” murder is wrong, you’re forgetting that that claim isn’t subject to such evidence. The claims of religions, on the other hand, are. Jesus was either born of a virgin or he wasn’t. That’s a question of fact open to inquiry and subject to proof. Either zombies emerged from their graves and walked among the masses when Jesus died (Matthew 27:52), or they didn’t. That is a factual, historical claim, and as such is as subject to inquiry as, say, the holocaust, an event for which overwhelmingly compelling evidence exists, despite the rantings of a few kooks. And on and on. I’m not saying we shouldn’t follow Christianity because they can’t “prove” their ethical claims (e.g., “turn the other cheek”). I’m saying they ought to be rejected because they rely on factual assertions about the way the universe works (e.g., you have a soul, and if it isn’t drenched with the blood of Jesus it will burn in a lake of fire for eternity), and they hold those views despite not only having no evidence FOR them, but that they stand in opposition to claims which DO have evidential support (e.g., natural selection).
That’s why “religion is different.” It isn’t just a series of logical moves or ethical prescriptions. Instead, they are all based on some factual claim, and from those claims we are supposed to recognize the general truth of other claims (e.g., the ethical prescriptions). In other words, BECAUSE of some fact (Jesus died for your sins), we are supposed to act in certain ways (“beat your plowshares into swords”).
You bring up some interesting examples of things not subject to traditional notions of “evidence.” But let’s see how religion might try and influence those questions. Imagine if we were discussing the ethics of murder. You say, “Murder is wrong,” and list a litany of well-reasoned arguments that would convince any reasonable person listening. Then imagine if my reply was, “You’re wrong, because I prayed about this last night, and God told me you were wrong. I can’t prove it, but God works in mysterious ways. You just can’t understand the big picture. But trust me, you’re wrong on this one.”
Of course you’d be right to think me insane, and to walk away. For the same reasons, everyone should walk away from religion.
One more thing.
Ryan, you wrote:
“In our personal and intellectual lives, we all take things for granted without any evidence in support of our views. You do it too.”
Yes, I do it; everyone does. But just because I take my mom’s word for it that vitamins are good for me doesn’t mean I should take Jerry Falwell’s word that Hurricane Katrina was a punishment for my “toleration” of homosexuality. Some truth claims are subject to evidence, and others are not. If I so chose, I could go to the relevant medical books and figure out the pharmacological properties of vitamins, and their interactions with the human body, to prove to myself beyond a reasonable doubt that Vitamin C probably does help my immune system protect me from disease. The opportunity cost is too high for me to do that, so I defer to the opinions of experts for such matters.
On the other hand, even with infinite time and resources, I could not get one step closer to proving or disproving Falwell’s claims about the origins of Hurricane Katrina. Sure, I could figure out all of the physical causes, but in the final analysis I would not be able to completely disprove Falwell’s claim that the ultimate cause of Katrina was Jesus.
And that’s the difference between religious claims, and those areas in life we take “on faith”.
And now it’s back to studying for the Florida Bar Exam (I will be checking in regularly, though!).
Ah, Dear Greg, now that I know you are a law student in Florida I understand that you are probably young. You did notice that my husband is a pretty smart guy, so perhaps you can take it on faith (I couldn’t resist) that his wife knows a little something too?
So first, when you say, “The claims of religions, on the other hand, are. Jesus was either born of a virgin or he wasn’t.” [sic] You are lumping all Christian religions into a monolithic group, and that is just not the case. For example, there are many religions where one is invited to question; expected to accept that no one really KNOWS; and asked merely to try Jesus’s prescriptions for living on for size. And it’s okay if you can’t “believe” the miracles on the grounds that there is no proof, because, of course there’s no proof! That’s why they call them miracles, silly! Just, see how the lifestyle fits. That’s quite different from saying, Jesus was either born of a virgin or he wasn’t. There is lots of wiggle room in “spirituality.” And, Greg, I’m afraid you’ll have trouble getting others to listen to your ideas if you continue to think of all religions as one misguided line of thought. Believe it or not there are great subtleties therein!
Second, when you say: “But insofar as they claim that they have access to universal truths that others do not, by virtue of their having the ear of the one true God, they ought to be ignored (at best), because they truly have nothing to bring to the table.” I do agree that one cannot have a discourse with anyone who is so certain that he or she is correct that he will not listen to others, and that many, Christians, Buddhists, Atheists, Mausists, whatever-ists, fit that description, But,how are you, practically speaking, going to ignore all the “religious” people. People, being human, just keep wanting answers to unanswerable questions like, “Who am I? What am I doing here? Do I have a purpose?” And religion, for better or worse, offers answers. Also, if you do ignore them, and don’t invite them to the table, won’t your table be rather small, and perhaps marginalized by all those folks you consider to be so unreasonable?
Finally, you say with reference to vitamin C, “The opportunity cost is too high for me to do that [research], so I defer to the opinions of experts for such matters.” That is exactly why I tried faith (MY definition of faith, not your Falwellian one) in the first instance. I thought, “Hey! Some pretty darn smart people I know throughout history have been quite convinced and have recommended faith, not on reasonable grounds, but on pragmatic ones. Maybe I should learn more about it.” Can’t hurt to learn, can it?
Finally, beware of experts.
Former law student, but close enough (I was graduated two years ago, but I haven’t gotten around to taking the bar–until now). And I hope I’m still young, but I’m not so sure anymore.
Anyway, onto your substantive points…
There are a few claims belief in which unites all Christians, such that denial of one of those claims automatically bars that person from truthfully calling oneself a “Christian.” Now, Jesus’ parthenogenesis may not be one of those claims, but I could’ve used some other supernatural event instead, and the point would’ve been the same. I you prefer, you can substitute: “Either Jesus was resurrected from the dead, or he wasn’t” (cf. I Corinthians 15:17 on that point).
If one denies the resurrection, then one can’t call oneself a Christian (at least per Paul in Corinthians, above). As such, my point holds, because the question whether Jesus was resurrected is a factual one; it is subject to proof as an historical event the way all other claims of historical events are. And either it happened or it didn’t (in the same way that, for instance, either the U.S. used atomic weapons at Hiroshima or we didn’t).
Re: Miracles, imagine if I told you I had some magic beans for sale, called Magibeans, and that if you paid me $100, I would plant those beans and magically cure 100 African AIDS patients. And imagine if, in response to your reasonable request for some evidence of my claim, I responded, ” Now don’t be ridiculous! Of course I don’t have evidence, because these are Magibeans!” You’d obviously keep your $100 and your children away from me, and rightly so. My point here is that just because you label something a “miracle” doesn’t mean it’s something for which we shouldn’t seek evidence to justify believing. If someone has claimed to have been healed by prayer rather than medicine, it isn’t wrong to ask for proof (and it isn’t valid to respond, “I don’t need proof for a miracle, because miracles like this don’t need proof.”). That’s circular reasoning.
You are right that religion offers answers to life’s deepest questions. But merely offering an answer doesn’t make that answer valid. I could develop dozens of answers to those questions, but would that make any of them true? What if I wrote them down, buried them and someone discovers them on 3,000 years? What if, when discovered, millions of people begin believing them?
The mutual incompatibility of religious claims should make us skeptical of all of them. Merely proffering an answer to a question should not command respect of those asking the question, unless it firsts offers reasons why it should be taken seriously as an answer (beyond merely stating that it shoud be, or worse, commanding it).
As far as your trying faith because smart people have tried it before, I don’t see how that works. After all, which faith? There are surely some very smart people who think Jesus is the son of God. There are very smart people who think Muhammad is Allah’s one true prophet. There are very smart Jews, and Buddhists, and I’m willing to bet there were very smart folks who thought Zeus lived on Mt. Olympus deciding which nations to favor in war. Again, given the infinite number of potential gods in whom one could have faith, merely pointing out that “smart people” have had faith in one or more of them doesn’t help much in determining whether to have “faith” at all, much less in which one.
“While you’re right that we can’t point to some piece of physical evidence that ‘proves’ murder is wrong, you’re forgetting that that claim isn’t subject to such evidence.”
The truth is that I wasn’t forgetting anything of the sort; my point is that there are some questions that have nothing to do with evidence and must be approached with that in mind. In my view theological questions fall into this category.
“The claims of religions, on the other hand, are. Jesus was either born of a virgin or he wasn’t.”
I don’t mix my theology with my natural science, but some/(most?)/(all?) religious texts do. I totally agree with you that Jesus was either born without a human father or he wasn’t, but I don’t think that we can come to a conclusion on that matter by examining evidence. Because there is no evidence! We can’t exactly compare Jesus’ DNA to Joseph’s. It’s just that Jesus being born without a sperm fertilizing an ovum flies in the face of both biology and common sense.
In the end, I doubt the importance of “Immaculate Conception” in the Christian system (I even doubt that it was a founding doctrine and that Jesus himself believed anyone other than Joseph to be his earthly father) besides for those looking to support the belief in Jesus-as-God on top of Jesus-as-Savior. Anyways, I feel sidetracked here and resolve to move on to my most important point:
In life, we all take some things on faith. What we take on faith is up to us. It comes down to what a person PREFERS to believe despite a total lack of evidence. For some that is the regularity of nature, for others it is that we each have a soul. And for some both, and others neither.
Be warned: your theological views are nothing but an expression of yourself.
Well it’s nice to know that this disagreement is between two true musical comrades.
I can’t seem to make myself clear. I am not trying to prove miracles exists by saying there is no proof. I’m just agreeing with you that there is no proof, but that doesn’t matter to me. And it doesn’t matter to me if you believe it or not. From my 57 years of experience I have felt, lived, loved, thought, and seen so many amazing things that I consider all of life to be a miracle. I am amazed that the air I breath is so sweet and that it keeps my body from becoming part of everyone else’s.
And more importantly, there is no convincing or getting away from all those silly, unreasonable, religious people. They are as entrenched in their system of beliefs as you are in yours (whether you call them beliefs or empirically proven facts does not matter one bit. Both sides are thoroughly content with their world-view and are not about to give it up). So then, what approach does one take? I think one looks for the common ground, as you mentioned “the golden rule” (Isn’t that basically the second commandment which is now considered so reasonable as to not require a religious underpinning?) and soften the language which purports to tell others how unreasonably they are behaving. I’m not saying we don’t call bad acts (sacrificing virgins or abusing children, for example) bad, but let’s not equate the common church goer with the believers in the Aztec Sun God. That tends to be off-putting, and we need a little less of that these days, don’t we?
My best to both Ryan and Greg. Greg are you a musician too?
investment property orlando
i was about to post something really good, but…
It would be great if you decide to post your opinion about religion at the light of this impressive book which should be read along with Dawkins´ God delusion, and Dennett´s Breaking the spell.
There’s an interesting New York Times review of Dennett’s Breaking the Spell. It’s written by Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of The New Republic. See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/books/review/19wieseltier.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5090&en=9ecb4016f9ff8682&ex=1298005200
Also, there’s a review of of Dawkins’ God Delusion at: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/books/review/Holt.t.html?ex=1319169600&en=d9a0ba69b41f32df&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Valerie speaks of “an interesting New York Times review of Dennett’s Breaking the Spell.” She doesn’t say why she thinks it’s interesting. It’s interesting as an example of unabashedly fallacious reasoning.
Leon Wieseltier goes after Daniel Dennett’s claim in his book that the human ability to “transcend” or act contrary to biological imperatives is itself a biological fact requiring naturalistic explanation.
Like many biological reductionists, Dennett is sure that he is not a biological reductionist. But the charge is proved as early as the fourth page of his book. Watch closely. “Like other animals,” the confused passage begins, “we have built-in desires to reproduce and to do pretty much whatever it takes to achieve this goal.” No confusion there, and no offense. It is incontrovertible that we are animals. The sentence continues: “But we also have creeds, and the ability to transcend our genetic imperatives.” A sterling observation, and the beginning of humanism. And then more, in the same fine antideterministic vein: “This fact does make us different.”
Then suddenly there is this: “But it is itself a biological fact, visible to natural science, and something that requires an explanation from natural science.” As the ancient rabbis used to say, have your ears heard what your mouth has spoken? Dennett does not see that he has taken his humanism back. Why is our independence from biology a fact of biology? And if it is a fact of biology, then we are not independent of biology. If our creeds are an expression of our animality, if they require an explanation from natural science, then we have not transcended our genetic imperatives. The human difference, in Dennett’s telling, is a difference in degree, not a difference in kind — a doctrine that may quite plausibly be called biological reductionism.
Yes, let’s watch closely. Wieseltier is trading on an ambiguous word usage or confusion about causality, or both. If we have freedom of the will, that is a feature of our form of consciousness that emerged biologically; i.e., it could have been determined by biological process that we have a self-regulatory faculty, a faculty whose operation at least to some extent requires choice and does not operate automatically. But our ability to reason and choose doesn’t mean we must act outside of our (human) biological nature. It simply means that we have a self-controlling capacity which other animals lack, or which they do not possess in the same degree even if they possess some rudimentary form of it (chimps, maybe).
Wieseltier perhaps is suggesting that because the human capacity of reason and free will contradicts the limits of what non-human creatures are capable of biologically, it also contradicts what human beings themselves are capable of biologically. But we can go against some aspects of our nature by exercising other aspects of our nature. As can animals lacking reason and free will, incidentally: if a gazelle is desperately hungry but runs from a predator instead of eating, it is ignoring the fact that it needs to eat to live for the sake of attending to the more urgently imposing fact that it needs not to be eaten to live. Our own ability to “transcend genetic imperatives” (to never have kids or whatever) is not something taped onto our biological nature from without. It is a manifestation of a particular aspect of it, the capacity to reason and choose, a capacity that allows us to be both aware of various impulses and decline to satisfy them.
It seems that Wieseltier, like other critics of rationalism, wants to see reason, naturalistically understood, as a mere form of faith: “But if reason is a product of natural selection,” he inquires, “then how much confidence can we have in a rational argument for natural selection? The power of reason is owed to the independence of reason, and to nothing else. (In this respect, rationalism is closer to mysticism than it is to materialism.)” This means that if reason emerged naturalistically (“non-independently”), instead of as a divine endowment, we have no way of knowing whether what reason tells us is correct when it tells us that 2+2 = 4. But this is a mere non sequitur.
Such universal skepticism embraces itself as well, being self-contradictory. Wieseltier might say he escapes the contradiction because he believes in a “different” kind of reason. But that would be yet more fudging. The power of reason as a faculty and process has to do with our ability to perceive, gather evidence, logically evaluate evidence, assess the strength and consistency of our conclusions in light of other things we know, etc. If we can observe the functioning and effectiveness of our reason, if we can observe our ability to make reasonable cases based on evidence and correct errors, we are aware of its validity even if we haven’t yet inquired into exactly how the faculty emerged in the world. Faith, by contrast, is a means of knowledge that claims to attain knowledge without any such cognitive process and even in contradiction to it. No matter how the issue of this alternative is framed, the two approaches are methodological opposites.
The second two paragraphs in the above post are from the NYT review. “Like many biological reductionists” through “…plausibly be called biological reductionism.”
Apparently my blockquoting didn’t work.