The "Brights" Movement- Saviour of Humanity or Just Another Cult?
Well I'm fascinated and puzzled by this new movement calling themselves the Brights. According the website http://www.the-brights.net :
* A bright is a person who has a naturalistic worldview
* A bright's worldview is free of supernatural and mystical elements
* The ethics and actions of a bright are based on a naturalistic worldview
"Persons who have a naturalistic worldview should not be culturally stifled or civically marginalized due to society’s extensive supernaturalism. Rather, they ought to be accepted as fellow citizens and full participants in the cultural and political landscape."
I hadn't realised that people with a naturalistic worldview were culturally stifled or civically marginalized! My experience with Brights has been the opposite. Though the website is almost defensive in it's denial of being anti-religious, the writings and attitudes of it's members show otherwise. My problem with this group is that though claiming to represent a new movement, in fact the majority seem to be hawking the same old worn out cliches as to why religion is to blame for most of the wars and strife of the planet. Yeah, yeah, I was a teenager too, I've heard it all. But no one in the group seems to have noticed the irony of how they themselves have all the hallmarks of a religious cult themselves. They have:
1. An evangelical mission
2. An assured certainty that a "supernatural" God does not exist.
3. An intolerance and patronising attitude toward anyone with an alternate opinion.
4. A refusal to accept that the non-existance of God is an OPINION not FACT.
5. A cultlike bonding in numbers for the security and protection of some rather dogmatic views.
6. A tendency toward bullying.
As far as I know, there is no definitive proof as to the existance of God. Likewise there is no definitive proof as to the non-existance of God. Therefore any firm opinions either way must be accepted on faith. I was recently at a Philosophy meeting with a group of Brights who scoffed at this notion. They could not accept that there even exists a possiblity they could be wrong. The idea that there might be a God seemed utterly incomprehensible. I was treated to derisive giggles as if to suggest that I was somehow intellectually inferior for daring to even ponder the notion. I came away with the impression that the phenomena had more to do with personality types rather than any absolutes as to whether there was a right or wrong answer. As an artist, I am comfortable with experiencing my world in metaphor. I am comfortable with the irrational, chaotic and seemingly disordered. This is the so called "supernatural" state of the "mystic", "poet" or "visonary" which I find so conducive to creating music and it is a comfortable state for me.
Not so with this group who grew impatient and demanded "evidence" to back my every utterance. Jesus would have been hard pressed to speak in parables to this lot. (Whoops! Did I say Jesus? No evidence. Invalid. Sorry!) No, they were not of a poetic nature. These people were no-nonsense, scientific thinkers only impressed by absolutes and facts, sanitary and free any traces of metaphor. I was scarcely able to complete an idea before I was pounced upon and disqualified on technical grounds. Little did they know, I am actually good with science and techie stuff! But I was stereotyped. It was disappointing. I relish the chance to open someone else's perspective and at the same time, broaden my own. I like looking at all sides. To me, that is the joy of debate. The sum of the parts is greater than the whole. I suppose from a rational scientifc perspective, 2 + 2 could never equal 5. But ask any musican who has ever experienced uplifting peak moments with a roomful of people and they will tell you 2 + 2 can equal infinity...
The website adamantly denies being anti-religion, but in practise this is not the case with their flock. Likewise the words of Jesus, Mohammad, etc. has also not sunk in to their respective followers. So what good the new ideology if the results are the same? Intolerance, snobbery, dogmatism, hostility....why is religion always to blame? Isn't it more likely that religion is just an excuse for traits that were already there in every one of us?
The question of whether or not there is a God is inherently an unfair question. Nobody can agree on what the word means. The Brights will no doubt attack me when I accuse them of believing in a God. It may not be the God of Christians, Jews or Muslims, but they do have faith in something, even if it is merely that all powerful, masculine, left brained, rational, logical and somewhat autistic God of SCIENCE. The truth is we do not know with absolute certainty even whether the sun will rise tomorrow. Though I accept that it has for the past eleventy trilion googledy poo years, this is still NOT 100% PROOF! Because unless we had the perspective of infinity, which encompasses ALL of space and time including this universe and possibly others, we could never know for sure. It is highly likely to rise, but not definite. It is for peace of mind that we find it necessary to delude ourselves and believe in 100% certainly. We have to pick and choose the boundaries of our certainty and everyone has their own comfort zone.
This delusion is necessary from a psychological point of view and is the cruxt of my argument. Faith does give comfort. It has it's place. The shaking of this faith can leave a lot of people very insecure. Insecurity leads from a derisive giggle to a patronising sneer, to an arrogant assertion, to a domineering swipe, to a greedy kick, to a violent outburst, to an organised battle and finally to weapons of mass extinction. Get the picture? No wonder we cling so desperately to our dogmas and are so willing to shoot down anyone who challenges them. We are all human and have all experienced being the bully and the bullied. BTW, my highly enlightened and spiritual reaction to being patronised by the Brights was to get in a few good digs myself! The shit goes round and round... Don'tcha just love being a member of the human race?
So does anybody know with absolute 100% certainty whether the sun will rise tomorrow? That person would need to have the perspective of infinity, be all places at once, know everything from past present and future, transcending all of space and time. That person would have to be...oh shit...it would have to be God! Could there possibly be an intelligence capable of all that? Or is the universe just a mindless blob of energy stumbling randomly throughout infinity like a d
ken cosmic Forrest Gump? Could there be nothing in ALL of space and time including this universe and possibly others more intelligent than these Brights?
For peace of mind and knowing that life will probably be easier with at least some degree of faith, given the choice between putting my faith in either God or some earthbound humans, I know where I'm laying my chips. So where's the nearest monastery?
;)
The Brights and Secularism
Having looked at the Brights website, I may have to review my original opinion that they are not a cult.
They certainly seem to have worked hard to create a website that reminds me of religion at its very worst, right down to the dreadful fixed smiles, trimmed beards and Californian address. Dear oh dear!
I think you are wrong when you say secularists are always going round saying religion is to blame for war. Indeed in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, it is religious people (mostly Muslims) who wrong claim the Americans are involved in a war against Islam - they are actually involved in a war for oil and power, little different to 1999 when the US was defending Muslims in Kosovo against the Christian Serbs.
The major wars of the twentieth century were not caused by religion, but they did show how facile religion is. The soldiers of every European nation were waved off to war by their religious leaders, and all prayed to the same God to help them. Didn't do much good did it?
If the Brights are a part of a growing interest in secularism, they will have contributed to a trend that is long overdue. Since roughly 1970 the world has seen a huge Islamist resurgence, with devestating effects on the status of women, trades unions, socialists and non-Muslims in countless countries. We are both lucky to live in a society that has been relatively untouched by this. We may not be so lucky in the future.
Whilst Europe has largely avoided the sort of hideous Christian revivalism rampant in the US, Africa has not. The spread of AIDS has been facilitated by the reactionary views of the Catholic church, as well as quack idigenous beliefs. The very future of some countries is imperilled as a result. Returning to the US, I don't see how anyone can oppose Bush without noting the dubious religious elements that surround him, or for that matter avoid concerns that Obama will ultimately be de-railed by his religious affiliations.
If the Brights raise the flag to attack religion, they will have done our society a considerable service. The fact is religious belief IS irrational - as it cannot be proved any of it is valid, how can it be anything else? We should say so rather than pandering to competing religious interest groups. Whilst it is probably too late now for the UK to take a leaf of France and Turkey in establishing a clearly secular state, there is much to be said for declaring that religion is a private matter only.
One of the difficulties governments have when looking to legislate in this field (as you will have to, if different religions prosper) is that it is extremely hard to do, especially as most major religions deliver voting lobbies to politicians. The big religions - like any corporation - look to keep the smaller fish out of the market place. But how do you, in legalistic terms, create laws that apply control to Scientologists and Jehovahs Witnesses, but don't interfere with the Church of England or the Methodists (to take two examples)?
All mainstream religions are simply successful cults - who can doubt the possibility that in 50 years Scientology will be bigger than some isolated Christian splinter groups? That at least will be poetic justice - a religion whose founder was actually CONVICTED of fraud makes a nice change.
No matter how irritating the Brights may get, they are unlikely to be as dictatorial as most religions have been. Up until very recently your religion was usually foisted upon you - as KRS One once put it to black America - if your slave master was not a Christian, you would not be a Christian.
According to you Meg "The question of whether or not there is a God is inherently an unfair question".
The question instead should be "What have we done to deserve God's followers, and how do we ensure they cause as little disruption to everyone's pursuit of life and happiness".......
My child
There, there, Yes come to me, my child!
Just follow the others, that's it. Just over the cliff.... There you go!
Thaaaaat's much better.
Brights and metaphor
I agree with the Brights on the substantive question of whether God exists. I also have more confidence in that belief than some might consider to be justified. Of course I could be wrong in thinking that God does not exist, just as I could be wrong in thinking that Paris is south of London, but I regard error as so unlikely that it is not worth worrying about. I regard my view that God does not exist as a pretty fundamental component of my whole world-view. It is something close to the fundamental propositions which Wittgenstein, in On Certainty, said stand fast for us, rather than being propositions we know.
Separately from the substantive question, there is the question of approach. Here I think that Meg's criticisms are valid. Some Brights find no place for metaphor, and take all the interesting questions to be straightforwardly factual questions with objective answers. But not all Brights are like that, and to be fair to those who are like that, it is not easy to find a place for metaphors which are more than fictions, without being objective facts. In 1968, a collection of essays called The Humanist Outlook, edited by A J Ayer, appeared. One of the essays, I cannot remember whose, tackled the issue of the disenchantment of the world which appears to follow from the rejection of religion. It ended by saying that we have exchanged belief in fairies for A Midsummer Night's Dream. The challenge is to find a way of making the Dream more than a play, without falling back into belief in fairies.
Isn't there a little tension
Isn't there a little tension between writing that, on the one hand, belief in, or lack of belief in, God, is like Wittgenstein's 'fundamental propositions', and on the other hand that there is a substantive issue of this, where you agree with the '''''Bright''''' approach? It's my understanding that the 'fundamental propositions' are precisely those where substantive agreement or disagreement isn't possible - because such agreement, or lack of if, requires more 'fundamental' (according to an appropriate understanding) propositions by which the belief can be justified, or not. Well, I know you wrote "something close to...", so perhaps you've a slightly different idea?
On the general question of what to make of the '''''Bright''''' movement (have to use anti-septic quotation marks, the name is so ridiculous), I feel that there's about as much brightness there as in the inside of an empty skull. Or is religion still to be taken to be a signing-up to a bunch of propositions about so-called "supernatural entities"? Perhaps - if we're all trying to interpret with the depth of a puddle.
Only a little tension
Yes, maybe there is a bit of one. However, I think that one can appreciate that there is an alternative point of view, in this case the theistic one, while having little or no conception of what it would be like to hold that point of view. (In my case little, rather than no, because I live in a society in which religion is fairly widespread and have seriously considered religious belief in the past.) Likewise I can understand in an abstract way that one might lay out the world other than in space-time, but I cannot imagine what it would be like to do so.
God exists
"I could be wrong in thinking that God does not exist, just as I could be wrong in thinking that Paris is south of London, but I regard error as so unlikely that it is not worth worrying about."
Oddly enough, I've got your same degree of certaintly, but 180 degrees in the opposite direction. From where I stand, the idea of a Godless Universe seems more outrageous than Dawkins' orbiting teacup. To me it seems almost ridiculous to debate. When I look around, I can see that the Universe is alive and intelligent. To me, God is not "supernatural". He is as clear as the nose on my face. Like you, I also could be wrong in thinking that there is a supreme intelligence, just as I could be wrong in thinking the sun will rise tomorrow, but to me the idea as so far fetched, that I, same as you, find it not worth worrying about.
But ironically, I suspect our beliefs are actually not that dissimilar. The God I see does not fall into any of the old cilches that the Brights enjoy sniggering about. I am a big fan of science and experience something close to religious awe when it comes to the latest technology. The Universe holds endless fascination for me. So I suppose it is all a question of semantics. I do believe in God and I don't believe in atheists. By that, I mean - I don't believe atheists don't believe in God! What they disbelieve are the many opinions as to the nature of God. But as far as God goes, there is nothing to believe and absolutely no faith required, all one has to do is look around. It's like looking at the sun and saying it doesn't exist. God exists.
What is God? The creator of the Universe.
How can you prove God created the Universe? Because it exists.
But maybe it was somebody else? OK then that somebody else is God.
But maybe it was something else, like a cosmic force. OK, so the cosmic force is God.
But how do you know the Universe was created? Because it exists.
But maybe it was always there? OK, then God was always there.
But maybe the universe doesn't exist, maybe we are in "the Matrix". Ok then God is the Matrix.
But maybe it wasn't God at all, maybe it was nature and evolution. OK, then God is nature and evolution.
But how do you know it was intelligence, maybe it was just random molecules. Ok, then God is a sloppy, idiot who randomly throws together molecues to create a Universe.
God created the Universe. How do I know? Because it exists.
Everybody has their own belief in the meaning of life and their own view of God. Human perceptions of God are often just hopeful guesses as to the "WHY"? Each individual's God bears a remarkable likeness to themselves and their own interpretation of the big "WHY" question of existence ? Even atheists have a cooly rational, logical God, not unlike themselves. But just because humans create God in their image, doesn't mean God doesn't exist. God is intelligent, though he may not be of the type of intelligence we can comprehend.
It could be argued that religious belief is an evolutionary trick encoded into our DNA . Humans have a need for a higher authorithy. Like dogs and other social animals, we seem designed to fall into heirarchy. Religious experience can be artifically stimulated in the brain. So belief in God may be beneficial evolutionarily. But that still leaves us with WHY we should exist at all.
I guess much of the bad rap God gets is due to all the pain, suffering and misery of the world. But we humans are arrogant in assuming that somehow the Universe was designed soley for us. Like dead cells dying off to make way for the new, death, misery and suffering may be a step toward a bigger plan.
So the question isn't whether there is a God. There is. The question is WHY did he create the Universe and life and all of us? And how do we live? Science may eventually answer the HOW of life. But we still need God to answer the WHY.
Shameless God Phantasy
Recently, a man tried to outwit me in trying to prove that there is God by saying; "And who created nothing?"
Well, if he paid something each time his staff did nothing .....
Eye for an eye...
If the Brights are a part of a growing interest in secularism, they will have contributed to a trend that is long overdue....If the Brights raise the flag to attack religion, they will have done our society a considerable service.
So the antidote to an intolerant, dogmatic group... is another intolerant, dogmatic group in order to address the balance? I can understand the desire for balance. Newton's laws tell us that this is the nature of the Universe. Every action does have an equal an opposite reaction. As we are all part of nature and the Universe, it is understandable that the desire for balance would be strong. But a far better equal and opposite reaction to intolerance would be tolerance. So, instead of the Brights, can we please have some more groups to promote tolerance?
I guess your argument isn't over whether or not God exists. But about why you see belief as bad thing. But it is nearly impossible to not believe in anything. Even the most skeptical of skeptics believe in something they cannot prove or something they cannot see. The only way it would be possible to not believe in anything is if you were utterly incapable of imagination at all. Even Dogs generally believe their owners will return. I don't think fish do, but maybe that is just my own arrogance toward fish!
I don't think it is religion you are complaining about, I think you are complaining about the nature of man. Humans band together in order to feel secure. 3 Brights banded against me to assure themselves that bright was right. My first natural reaction was to seek backup. This is how we are. In the future, through DNA we may discover the mechanism behind the need to form groups for security. Then we can genetically engineer it out of the human race. But In order to remove religious belief, we would need to genetically remove imagination.