[MD] Plains Talk and Pragmatism

[david buchanan]

Mark said to Ron:
... My understanding of Theism from personal conversations from the Christian side, is that it provides: meaning, purpose, morality, common purpose, a sense of security, a personal sense of responsibility and morals, a possible afterlife, a possibility of atonement in this life, forgiveness, redemption, and the possibility of miracles. These sound like a lot of quality reasons to choose it.  It could be considered lying to oneself whatever position one
 takes. What would be the reasons to choose anti-theism or atheism besides a self-centered notion of knowing?  In the end we really are talking about choice I believe.

dmb says:

Actually, I posted the following nearly two years ago (Jan 13, 2009).

...Among psychologist and sociologists there is a thing called the deprivation theory of religion.

This theory claims that religion caters to those who have been deprived of certain emotional and psychological needs. You know, the sigh of the oppressed, the opiate of he masses, the expression of infantile wishes and the fear of death and, less grandly, people who just need love, acceptance, certainty and a sense of meaning or purpose. I don't think the deprivation theory of religion explains everything but it pretty well describes the psychological motives of many, if not most, religious people.

The Christian myth no longer functions the way it is supposed to. The symbols have been literalized, concretized and have lost their meaning AS symbols. As Joe Campbell puts it, religion is a misinterpretation of myth. So the people who continue to subscribe to traditional religion have more or less agreed to believe lots of things that just aren't believable, things like actual virgin births and literally coming back from the dead, etc.. Sadly, they take the symbols literally and fail to understand that "the promised land is not about real estate", as Campbell puts it.

Carl Jung disagreed with Freud almost entirely. Where Freud thought that religious belief indicated an unhealthy mind, Jung thought spiritual development was essential to human health. (Campbell was mostly a Jungian but he takes Freud and other psychologists on board as well.) At the same time, however, Jung saw a serious failure in the conventional forms of Christianity such as in his own father's church. Even as a child, he saw that his father and uncles preached sermons without having any actual religious experience. He could see that they didn't know what they were talking about and hat they only believed on basis of faith rather than knowing from their own experience. In that sense, Jung thought, religion often prevents spiritual development. He considered religious experience to be a psychological fact. Radical empiricists would agree. Religious claims begin with such facts but the radical empiricist insists that we ought not go beyond the experience to assert supernatural entities as the cause of such experience.

The archetypal images that present themselves in such experience will always be images that the experiencer can relate to, depending on one's particular context, but this is not taken as proof of anything beyond the experience itself. I mean, it doesn't matter if you have a vision of Jesus, Buddha or Bob. The hero can wear a thousand different faces but it's essentially the same vision. And the test of the "truth" of these kinds of experiences comes in subsequent experience. Did the experience result in some kind of growth or transformation of consciousness? Does this change lead to a difference in the quality of life? A belief proves to be good (or not) depending on how we live with it but it'll never be good in practice unless it also harmonizes with all of your other beliefs. Pragmatic truth is very open and flexible but it's not so loose and casual that we can just say, "hey, whatever works for you".

If that were the case, Pragmatism would provide justification for believers who fit the deprivation theory of religion. They could say it "works" for them simply because it provides emotional comfort. Opium feels good too but it will take over your life and eventually kill you. Now (11/11/10) I'd also point out that beliefs held because they provide such things as meaning, purpose, security, an afterlife, atonement, forgiveness, redemption, and miracles are beliefs that the believer NEEDS to believe. If a belief give you all that there is no way in hell he's going to be open to criticism. If you dispute that belief, from his point of view, you are not merely debating the merits of an idea. You are a serious threat to his central coping mechanism. You are challenging the very purpose and meaning of his life. In that kind of situation, facts, reasons and evidence are viewed as demonic enemies rather than material for reflection.

The deprivation theory of religion is relevant here, obviously, because we are supposedly here for the very purpose of debating and discussing and changing our beliefs. It is literally impossible to have a reasonable discussion with anyone who needs to believe their beliefs that much. Remember what happened to Jamie when he tried to take that doll away from Lila? That "baby" was her religion, her religion of one. She didn't believe it because it made sense or because it was harmonized so well or explained so much. She believed it because she NEEDED to and when Jamie posed a threat to her religion she slashed him across the face with a knife. Think about that scene the next time you see one of our theist friends respond to any criticism of their theism. Then ask yourself if that response is more like a knife in the face or more like a reasonable engagement with the concepts in dispute. Does that response evade the reasons and evidence with insults or does it intelligently communicate an alternative point of view? Is that response intellectually substantial or is it just anger and abuse? Obviously, there is no way to have a meaningful conversation with those who respond with knives to the face and such persons aren't really interested in philosophy anyway.

In a context like this, the presence of this kind of psychological incorrigibility is very destructive. It's a wrench in the gears. It's not just that these beliefs are incompatible with the MOQ. It's that such beliefs are incompatible with any kind of open discussion because that's about as full as any teacup ever gets.