Should Integralists Storm the Religious Battlefield?

[C4Chaos]

(Crossposted from ~C4Chaos @ Zaadz)

I just finished reading this Newsweek article entitled, Moderates Storm The Religious Battlefield. There are a couple of important points from the article that I want to highlight:

1) Although the article didn't completely concede "victory" to the (New) atheists (Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens), it recognized their
achievements for they have "emphatically (and correctly) argued that
nonbelievers have the same rights under the Constitution as believers
do." As a case in point, Mitt Romney's speech on faith
was a "testament to the power of the atheists that he [Romney] had to
answer to them all." In short, thanks to the "loud and intransigent
rhetoric" of the (New) atheists, conversations on religion, science,
belief, faith are catapulted into mainstream media.

2) Moderate voices are now rising up to the challenge. Rev. Timothy Keller's upcoming book, The Reason for God, and Bart Ehrman's God's Problem are two books cited in the article. [Note: Too bad the article didn't mention Thank God for Evolution! by Michael Dowd since that book is out already.]

I've been covering the New Atheists on my blog (since the middle of 2006) way before the "New Atheist" label was in fashion. I even collectively criticized them and called their ideas FLAT. Looking back to my previous criticisms of the New Atheists, I admit
that I was too quick on the draw. My bad. I've made a cardinal mistake
of treating them as a leviathan with three heads [Dawkins, Dennett,
Harris]. However, the more I learn about each of them, the more I
realize that their ideas are as diverse as the believers they
criticize. Instead of a leviathan, they are more akin to horsemen with
different personalities and philosophy fighting under the banner of
rationality. By actually reading their books and articles, watching
their interviews, and following their video debates, I've come to
appreciate and understand where they're coming from. Because of this I
could highlight the important parts of their arguments while at the same
time be more critical of their arguments which, to my judgment, are very
partial, arrogant, and too certain. In short, I could better rank their ideas and put them into a more integral perspective.

IMHO, this differentiation and ranking of the New Atheists is what seems to be missing from mainstream media as well as the Integralists subculture. The absence of ranking and differentiation in mainstream media, that I can take. But I expect more from
Integralists. For example, I expect Integralists (i.e. authors, thinkers
at IntegralWorld, philosophers like Wilber, Spiral Dynamic gurus) to treat the New Atheists
with respect, acknowledge their importance, and take the time to join
them (e.g. debate with them, dialogue with them, critique them) in this
"important national conversation" [Wilber's words]. So far, I'm still left wanting. But then again, that's just me.

Some integrally-informed people say that there's nothing really new with the philosophical arguments of the New Atheists; that their
arguments are rehashed from the old days of the Enlightenment and
conscientious theologians of the past. I agree. I think even the New Atheists would
agree, for they have bibliographies in their books pointing to the
Founding Fathers, theologians, and thinkers in the Age of Enlightenment.
However, what I think the main difference is between the New Atheists
and the Enlightenment is the context, timing, and the ubiquity of
information in our fast evolving globally connected culture. With the
dangers of divisiveness caused by irrational and unexamined religious
differences, the New Atheists are fighting a more important
philosophical and political "battle" because the stakes are much higher
today than a thousand years ago. I doubt that they would convert people
into nonbelievers (or into believers of their cause), but the fact that
they've already succeeded in making noises, sounding the alarm and
getting the religious fundamentalists, moderates, atheists, and
agnostics to join the religious battlefield (while enriching their bottom line in the process) is already a big
accomplishment. They've sown the seeds of dissent in our current global culture. It's time for
Integralists to follow through, seize the opportunity, and take this
important (inter)national conversation to a whole new level.

My questions to you dear readers: Should Integralists Storm the Religious Battlefield? How? Why? Why Not? Do you have to be a moderate to be integral? Can Integralists take on the New Atheists with the same
rhetoric and passion?

[BrightAbyss~]

If I may:

Atheism is equally based on 'faith' - in the sense of holding a belief without evidence - if and only if Atheists say that they KNOW there is no God OF ANY KIND. Such an assertion is preposterous. They cannot know for certain whether or not SOME KIND of God exists.

But what these Atheists are saying is quite different, at least as far as I can tell. They are saying that Jehovah, Allah, and Yahweh cannot be Real IN THE WAY that “true believers” assume. The New Atheists are saying that deities such as those described in a literal interpretation of religious documents (myth) cannot truly exist IN THE WAY that traditionalists believe.

And why do they assert this? Because overwhelming scientific evidence suggests that the religious documents that describe these deities are so completely wrong about the physical universe, and that the ‘logic’ in these documents is so flawed, that these documents cannot possibly be right about a myriad of issues.
The new atheists refute a tradionalistic God – but often remain silent on the possibility of a more kosmological-spiritual source.

Besides, science provides evidence for its claims, allowing us to make inferences - whereas religion often thrives (almost by necessity) on the lack of evidence. All we need to do is ask our selves what is more believe-able.

In that sense, then, I am an Atheist as well – I cannot believe in a Christian god, for example – and I would go so far as to say that I KNOW that God as described and misrepresented by a vast majority of Christians does not exist. Biology, geology, anthropology, chemistry, and archeology all demonstrate clearly how the major claims of monotheistic religious dogmas are false (e.g., re: evolution).

However, who can say for certain whether or not some OTHER KIND of god-like presence could exist? That’s why I’m agnostic…

[marmalade]

BrightAbyss,
What you say about atheism and agnosticism applies to me.

Most atheists aren't strong atheists which means they don't actively disbelieve in God. The majority are probably weak atheists... they don't believe in God, but neither do they believe in a lack of God. It simply isn't something they have a clear or absolute belief about. Also, a person can be atheist about one god, but theist about another god. Christians are atheist in relationship to gods of other religions.

Strong agnostics believe knowledge of God isn't possible. Weak agnostics simply believe they lack knowledge of God. Agnosticism isn't directly about belief in God. An agnostic can be a theist or an atheist or neither.

[marmalade]

Chiron,
'Tis true. I was only referring to traditional Christians. According to some definitions, I would consider myself Christian. I'm sure that together we both could make a long list of non-traditional Christians who believe in a mystical one true Godhead type of God.

[sunyalila]

Hi Jonathan,

Thank you for your kind words. I think that the inquiry that you suggest would be part of what I meant when I spoke of clearing the way inside of ourselves. Byron Katie's "The Work" questions belief and is an example along this line. If truth is more important than one's most cherished beliefs, including one's sense of self and the world, it could be quite a courageous and (and in the most positive sense of the term) disillusioning inquiry. I think that beliefs as mental contructs are comparable to religious belief. That is why we are not going to change what is divisive about religion but merely add to it, if we bring in more constructs including anti-isms.

Are you the one who linked (at the Wilber Forum), the excerpt from recent talk that Sam Harris gave on the problem with atheism? In this talk I think he has a healthy respect for contemplative practice and for mystery (and doesn't confabulate under the pretense of fact, philosophy or science to fill in the unknowns), and makes some good points that are in line with what we are talking about. If you are interested in the whole transcript, I have it, but here it is the excerpt that was posted:

Sam Harris: ",,,The last problem with atheism I’d like to talk about relates to some of the experiences that lie at the core of many religious traditions, though perhaps not all, and which are testified to, with greater or lesser clarity in the world’s “spiritual” and “mystical” literature.

Those of you who have read The End of Faith, know that I don’t entirely line up with Dan, Richard, and Christopher in my treatment of these things. So I think I should take a little time to discuss this. While I always use terms like “spiritual” and “mystical” in scare quotes, and take some pains to denude them of metaphysics, the email I receive from my brothers and sisters in arms suggests that many of you find my interest in these topics problematic.

First, let me describe the general phenomenon I’m referring to. Here’s what happens, in the generic case: a person, in whatever culture he finds himself, begins to notice that life is difficult. He observes that even in the best of times—no one close to him has died, he’s healthy, there are no hostile armies massing in the distance, the fridge is stocked with beer, the weather is just so—even when things are as good as they can be, he notices that at the level of his moment to moment experience, at the level of his attention, he is perpetually on the move, seeking happiness and finding only temporary relief from his search.

We’ve all noticed this. We seek pleasant sights, and sounds, and tastes, and sensations, and attitudes. We satisfy our intellectual curiosities, and our desire for friendship and romance. We become connoisseurs of art and music and film—but our pleasures are, by their very nature, fleeting. And we can do nothing more than merely reiterate them as often as we are able.

If we enjoy some great professional success, our feelings of accomplishment remain vivid and intoxicating for about an hour, or maybe a day, but then people will begin to ask us “So, what are you going to do next? Don’t you have anything else in the pipeline?” Steve Jobs releases the IPhone, and I’m sure it wasn’t twenty minutes before someone asked, “when are you going to make this thing smaller?” Notice that very few people at this juncture, no matter what they’ve accomplished, say, “I’m done. I’ve met all my goals. Now I’m just going to stay here eat ice cream until I die in front of you.”

Even when everything has gone as well as it can go, the search for happiness continues, the effort required to keep doubt and dissatisfaction and boredom at bay continues, moment to moment. If nothing else, the reality of death and the experience of losing loved ones punctures even the most gratifying and well-ordered life.

In this context, certain people have traditionally wondered whether a deeper form of well-being exists. Is the

[sunyalila]

the quote was truncated. Here is the rest:

Sam Harris: "In this context, certain people have traditionally wondered whether a deeper form of well-being exists. Is there, in other words, a form of happiness that is not contingent upon our merely reiterating our pleasures and successes and avoiding our pains. Is there a form of happiness that is not dependent upon having one’s favorite food always available to be placed on one’s tongue or having all one’s friends and loved ones within arm’s reach, or having good books to read, or having something to look forward to on the weekend? Is it possible to be utterly happy before anything happens, before one’s desires get gratified, in spite of life’s inevitable difficulties, in the very midst of physical pain, old age, disease, and death?

This question, I think, lies at the periphery of everyone’s consciousness. We are all, in some sense, living our answer to it—and many of us are living as though the answer is “no.” No, there is nothing more profound that repeating one’s pleasures and avoiding one’s pains; there is nothing more profound that seeking satisfaction, both sensory and intellectual. Many of us seem think that all we can do is just keep our foot on the gas until we run out of road.

But certain people, for whatever reason, are led to suspect that there is more to human experience than this. In fact, many of them are led to suspect this by religion—by the claims of people like the Buddha or Jesus or some other celebrated religious figures. And such a person may begin to practice various disciplines of attention—often called “meditation” or “contemplation”—as a means of examining his moment to moment experience closely enough to see if a deeper basis of well-being is there to be found.

Such a person might even hole himself up in a cave, or in a monastery, for months or years at a time to facilitate this process. Why would somebody do this? Well, it amounts to a very simple experiment. Here’s the logic of it: if there is a form of psychological well-being that isn’t contingent upon merely repeating one’s pleasures, then this happiness should be available even when all the obvious sources of pleasure and satisfaction have been removed. If it exists at all, this happiness should be available to a person who has renounced all her material possessions, and declined to marry her high school sweetheart, and gone off to a cave or to some other spot that would seem profoundly uncongenial to the satisfaction of ordinary desires and aspirations.

One clue as to how daunting most people would find such a project is the fact that solitary confinement—which is essentially what we are talking about—is considered a punishment even inside a prison. Even when cooped up with homicidal maniacs and rapists, most people still prefer the company of others to spending any significant amount of time alone in a box.

And yet, for thousands of years, contemplatives have claimed to find extraordinary depths of psychological well-being while spending vast stretches of time in total isolation. It seems to me that, as rational people, whether we call ourselves “atheists” or not, we have a choice to make in how we view this whole enterprise. Either the contemplative literature is a mere catalogue of religious delusion, deliberate fraud, and psychopathology, or people have been having interesting and even normative experiences under the name of “spirituality” and “mysticism” for millennia.

Now let me just assert, on the basis of my own study and experience, that there is no question in my mind that people have improved their emotional lives, and their self-understanding, and their ethical intuitions, and have even had important insights about the nature of subjectivity itself through a variety of traditional practices like meditation.

Leaving aside all the metaphysics and mythology and mumbo jumbo, what contemplatives and mystics over the millennia claim to have discovered is that there is an alternative to merely living at the mercy of the next neurotic thought that comes careening into consciousness. There is an alternative to being continuously spellbound by the conversation we are having with ourselves.

Most us think that if a person is walking down the street talking to himself—that is, not able to censor himself in front of other people—he’s probably mentally ill. But if we talk to ourselves all day long silently—thinking, thinking, thinking, rehearsing prior conversations, thinking about what we said, what we didn’t say, what we should have said, jabbering on to ourselves about what we hope is going to happen, what just happened, what almost happened, what should have happened, what may yet happen—but we just know enough to just keep this conversation private, this is perfectly normal. This is perfectly compatible with sanity. Well, this is not what the experience of millions of contemplatives suggests.

Of course, I am by no means denying the importance of thinking. There is no question that linguistic thought is indispensable for us. It is, in large part, what makes us human. It is the fabric of almost all culture and every social relationship. Needless to say, it is the basis of all science. And it is surely responsible for much rudimentary cognition—for integrating beliefs, planning, explicit learning, moral reasoning, and many other mental capacities. Even talking to oneself out loud may occasionally serve a useful function.

From the point of view of our contemplative traditions, however—to boil them all down to a cartoon version, that ignores the rather esoteric disputes among them—our habitual identification with discursive thought, our failure moment to moment to recognize thoughts as thoughts, is a primary source of human suffering. And when a person breaks this spell, an extraordinary kind of relief is available.

But the problem with a contemplative claim of this sort is that you can’t borrow someone else’s contemplative tools to test it. The problem is that to test such a claim—indeed, to even appreciate how distracted we tend to be in the first place, we have to build our own contemplative tools. Imagine where astronomy would be if everyone had to build his own telescope before he could even begin to see if astronomy was a legitimate enterprise. It wouldn’t make the sky any less worthy of investigation, but it would make it immensely more difficult for us to establish astronomy as a science.

To judge the empirical claims of contemplatives, you have to build your own telescope. Judging their metaphysical claims is another matter: many of these can be dismissed as bad science or bad philosophy by merely thinking about them. But to judge whether certain experiences are possible—and if possible, desirable—we have to be able to use our attention in the requisite ways. We have to be able to break our identification with discursive thought, if only for a few moments. This can take a tremendous amount of work. And it is not work that our culture knows much about.

One problem with atheism as a category of thought, is that it seems more or less synonymous with not being interested in what someone like the Buddha or Jesus may have actually experienced. In fact, many atheists reject such experiences out of hand, as either impossible, or if possible, not worth wanting. Another common mistake is to imagine that such experiences are necessarily equivalent to states of mind with which many of us are already familiar—the feeling of scientific awe, or ordinary states of aesthetic appreciation, artistic inspiration, etc.

As someone who has made his own modest efforts in this area, let me assure you, that when a person goes into solitude and trains himself in meditation for 15 or 18 hours a day, for months or years at a time, in silence, doing nothing else—not talking, not reading, not writing—just making a sustained moment to moment effort to merely observe the contents of consciousness and to not get lost in thought, he experiences things that most scientists and artists are not likely to have experienced, unless they have made precisely the same efforts at introspection. And these experiences have a lot to say about the plasticity of the human mind and about the possibilities of human happiness.

So, apart from just commending these phenomena to your attention, I’d like to point out that, as atheists, our neglect of this area of human experience puts us at a rhetorical disadvantage. Because millions of people have had these experiences, and many millions more have had glimmers of them, and we, as atheists, ignore such phenomena, almost in principle, because of their religious associations—and yet these experiences often constitute the most important and transformative moments in a person’s life. Not recognizing that such experiences are possible or important can make us appear less wise even than our craziest religious opponents.

My concern is that atheism can easily become the position of not being interested in certain possibilities in principle. I don’t know if our universe is, as JBS Haldane said, “not only stranger than we suppose, but stranger than we can suppose.” But I am sure that it is stranger than we, as “atheists,” tend to represent while advocating atheism. As “atheists” we give others, and even ourselves, the sense that we are well on our way toward purging the universe of mystery. As advocates of reason, we know that mystery is going to be with us for a very long time. Indeed, there are good reasons to believe that mystery is ineradicable from our circumstance, because however much we know, it seems like there will always be brute facts that we cannot account for but which we must rely upon to explain everything else. This may be a problem for epistemology but it is not a problem for human life and for human solidarity. It does not rob our lives of meaning. And it is not a barrier to human happiness.

We are faced, however, with the challenge of communicating this view to others. We are faced with the monumental task of persuading a myth-infatuated world that love and curiosity are sufficient, and that we need not console or frighten ourselves or our children with Iron Age fairy tales. I don’t think there is a more important intellectual struggle to win; it has to be fought from a hundred sides, all at once, and continuously; but it seems to me that there is no reason for us to fight in well-ordered ranks, like the red coats of Atheism.

Finally, I think it’s useful to envision what victory will look like. Again, the analogy with racism seems instructive to me. What will victory against racism look like, should that happy day ever dawn? It certainly won’t be a world in which a majority of people profess that they are “nonracist.” Most likely, it will be a world in which the very concept of separate races has lost its meaning.

We will have won this war of ideas against religion when atheism is scarcely intelligible as a concept. We will simply find ourselves in a world in which people cease to praise one another for pretending to know things they do not know. This is certainly a future worth fighting for. It may be the only future compatible with our long-term survival as a species. But the only path between now and then, that I can see, is for us to be rigorously honest in the present. It seems to me that intellectual honesty is now, and will always be, deeper and more durable, and more easily spread, than “atheism.”"

[sunyalila]

Dear Jonathan,

I very much appreciate your inquiry into 'other' and how "The incapacity to recognize this unity deep within comes out as racism, which is suppressed, but creates problems for us and rots away for however long we choose to ignore it." I think that is very true and you got to the heart of the matter and the fears that govern some of the problems we are facing in the world today and for centuries past.

It is good to see you saying what you have here. You are sounding very clear and elaborating in your own unique way on some of the same songs I have been singing since posting on the Wilber forum 9 years ago. Included in that is what you say about the tendency towards an ascender bias and denial of the body. I had many discussions about that with the late John Pasic and 'eagle' who also zeroed in on that. Inflluenced by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, for many years I had been very actively focused on the divinization of matter. It has evolved from a sense of an ascending consciousness to more of an organic unveling of what is. However, my sadhana and yoga have been about being in the world, bringing awareness into the body (or unveiling it), living heaven on earth, embracing the immanent, the shadow and what is, and living eternity in time. I agree that a true challenge, "is finding true community and love with each other." and it seems you have tapped into the simple hunger of the heart and soul for recognition in the light of a touch that breaks through the wounds of separation.

Chiron: "Seen from a grand perspective, however, we see that ignorance and sin will live forever. Because without ignorance and sin, there is no knowledge and virtue.

Can you know that for certain? I understand the logic - but that does not resonate as being true or correspond to my experience. I do not think that Knowledge (as opposed to 'information') is based on ignorance. Although I can see that in the field of manifestation, ignorance is an invitation for That to come to know itself in places and ways it hasn't. If it is ongoing, it is because the Divine as and through us/manifestation will always be finding new places and ways to come to know its unlimited Self. In our ignorance and in our knowledge, individually and collectively, we all serve each other and potentiate this unfolding. Perhaps notions of virtue are based in relation to notions of sin and that the comparative mind gives each their meaning. The only way for me to understand the notion of sin is to see it simply as separation. Will the perception of separation always be or is there an ongoing evolution of consciousness where the illusion of it will cease to hold its sway? I intuit that the Truth will (and despite appearances does) prevail, yet how it will find itself and dance amidst this infinitude of diverse appearances, I don't really know.

[BrightAbyss~]

Excellent post -C ~

I think there is much to learn from each and every person on this network. I have been enjoying your comments, THX.

[sunyalila]

[Diane]

My problem with the new Atheists,is that they tend to be the old Victorian social darwinists, albeit dressed up in new clothing. I have to focus on Dawkins because I haven't bothered to follow the others, though I make a highly subjective "more of the same" judgement. No I am not rational, even handed and balanced, if one comes from the mind, one rarely is, but I have given quite a bit of thought to it in a historical context. Sven Linqvist has a book Eliminating the Brute, basically about the subset assumptions underlying the march of white imperialism, most of these hold true for Dawkins philosophical underpinings.You may be able to take the boy out of his colonialist childhood, but its imprint remains, and Dawkins attitude to Islam clearly reflects this, it is the religion of savages, whereas Christianity while passed its used by date, is somehow culturally superior, I'm sure he still sits at High Table, and that is one of the last bastions of white christian superiority.
In, again my subjective, biased view, what Dawkins, at least, is trying to do is replace a crumbling patriarchal, authoritarian superstructure based on religion, with a patriarchal, authoritarian superstructure based on scientific reductionism. Of course Dawkins hides this behind a sophiticated rational urbane persona,but some of us look behind the curtain (veil) and are not deceived one jot.
In my view there is no more chance of establishing a dialogue with then New Atheists than with the religious fundamentalists, nor should one really bother, unless you are bored and have nothing better to do.

[C4Chaos]

Diane said: "In my view there is no more chance of establishing a dialogue with then New Atheists than with the religious fundamentalists, nor should one really bother, unless you are bored and have nothing better to do."

with all do respect, this is the aloof attitude that i want to address within the integral subculture. imho, John Shelby Spong has a more open-minded take on this one. here's a quote:

"I welcome the attention that serious atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are offering the world at this moment through their books. They are bringing what I regard as a deserved criticism and a necessary correction to what Christianity has become in our generation.

"I, for one, have no desire to worship a God who is thought to favor the war in the Middle East in order to accomplish some obscure prediction found in the late first century book of Revelation, who suppresses women in the name of ancient patriarchy, or who is so deeply homophobic that oppressing homosexuals becomes the defining issue of church life.

"Such an irrational, superstitious deity has no appeal to me and the attack of atheists against this kind of God is welcome. I also do not want to be told that the “true God” can be found either in the inerrancy of the Bible or in the infallibility of a Pope. Both are absurd religious claims designed not to discover truth but to enforce religious authority and conformity.

"I believe, therefore, that atheism as a challenge to organized religion has a worthy vocation to fulfill. The real atheists are saying that the God they have encountered inside the life of the church is too small and too compromised to be God for their lives. If the church is dedicated to such an unbelievable, magical and miracle-working deity that it cannot admit to any genuine probing of the divine, then the atheist speaks a powerful truth."

my two cents.

~C

[BrightAbyss~]

I couldn't agree more ~C

And the N.As have the conviction to discuss the issues...

[sunyalila]

Greetings, Diane. Welcome! I like your points about the imprint of cultural heritage informing philosophical underpinnings and that "what Dawkins, at least, is trying to do is replace a crumbling patriarchal, authoritarian superstructure based on religion, with a patriarchal, authoritarian superstructure based on scientific reductionism."

Diane: "In my view there is no more chance of establishing a dialogue with then New Atheists than with the religious fundamentalists, nor should one really bother, unless you are bored and have nothing better to do."

You may be right that there is not an opening for dialogue or for change with a given individual in a given moment, and it would be an inefficient use of energy to try. However, I think that as soon as we make up our minds of impossibility and do not hold the space open for wonder and the possibilities inherent in all human beings, or to see within a given moment if all conditions come together and there is an opening, we get caught within our own fundamentalist traps and psychically hold people to our own formations of them. Freeing up our own beliefs about others makes it that much easier for others to do the same (about themselves). I am not suggesting a denial of their ignorance or fundamentalism, but simply not holding them to it. The one thing that atheists might have (in the way of an opening to what is beyond their own beliefs) over religious fundamentalists is that they are culturally courageous in taking a more iconoclastic view. However, there is also the possibility that their fundamentalism behind their own anti-ism is more subtle (to them) and therefore insidiously ingrained. In this thread, I posted a talk that Sam Harris recently gave that shows that not all of those we are calling New Atheists follow such a close-minded suit.

Love and namaste,

Ellen