In his latest screed, God is not Great, Christopher Hitchens writes about religion that, "it is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge as well as comfort, reassurance and other infantile needs. Today, the least educated of my children knows much much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion."
Leaving aside the infantile and petulant language, he's just plain wrong about our ancestors abilities, relative to our childrens'. The hunter gatherers of the early age of our species may not have known anything about Special Relativity. But they undoubtedly forgot, in their lifetimes, more than Hitchens himself will ever know about the rhythms of the seasons, the behaviours of every animal and plant they encountered, and the cycles of the weather. It is these people people who first gave us religion; people so much closer to the Earth as it really is than we in our abstracted world are.
What arrogance we have today to believe we know so much. Sure many of us can say, "electron", and have some vague idea that this abstract thing we will never see circles, in a Quantum-mechanical way, the nucleus of an atom.
But how many of us know how to flake an axehead out of stone? How many of us know how to get antibiotics from a plant, and what growth state that plant has to be in for it to be effective?
Similarly, when those of us today in our smug knowingness assert "there is no God" (without a shred of evidence more for the assertion today than was the case 30,000 years ago) , we do it out of abstract ignorance. We read in some rabies-drenched Richard Dawkins essay that there was no God, right? So it must be true, right?
My grandfather had a saying, which my Dad often repeated to me, whenever I began to pontificate about some topic I knew only in the abstract. He'd say, "Wuz you there, Charlie?"
"Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding." (Job 38:4)
Though I have faith, I'm not so arrogant as to tell an atheist that the strong anthropic principle ensures us through science that there is a God, because ultimately, I wasn't there to witness the moment of creation, when a scalar field kicked off the Big Bang. And I'll thank them to remember that neither were they.
Science is about the natural world, and though it tells us about much, is competent to tell us only of the natural world. If I look to the tongues of angels to tell me about the reality beyond, I need a guide that takes me beyond nature. I do not apologize for seeking out the transcendant, for it is there. I've seen it with my other sight, after all.
6 comments:
I think there's some merit to the assertion that even youngsters nowadays understand more about the underpinnings of the natural order than did bronze-age adults.
No, we don't flintknap or tan our own leather, but we know enough to realize that lightning isn't Thor's Hammer, but a discharge of electricity. We know that having a cow come down with some disease isn't because your neighbor is a witch and hexed it, but because of a specific virus or bacteria. We know that a birth defect isn't due to the disfavor of the gods or possession by evil spirits, but because of simple biology. We know that if you compliment a child and it soon afterward comes down with a cold, it's not because you attracted the Evil Eye with your compliment, but simple coincidence.
Our modern knowledge of probability, chemistry and medicine, for example, has made unnecessary the religious and quasireligious explanations that were given to explain much of the natural order that wasn't really understood a few thousand years ago. And though we may not understand everything about what a germ is, we know enough about it to know it's not an evil spirit with willfully malicious intent that must be appeased, etc...
Of course, bronze age folks generally had much more awareness of noticing patterns and timing of the rhythms of nature. But that doesn't mean they actually understood the natural order more than we do today.
Humility caveat: I'm sure the folks in a few thousand years will be saying similar things about us, when they reflect back on our level of ignorance...
I think we're too quick to assume that ancient people had such silly forms of knowledge. A lot of our belief that ancient people believed in witch-hexed cattle and evil eyes is more modern prejudice, than an actual ancient reality.
Look at the Greeks... without observational equipment, they speculated on everything from the atom to the round Earth.
And yes, today, we may have more knowledge about certain scientific abstractions. Like I said, you may know more about electrons than a Neolithic farmer. But that cow you think he thinks is hexed? He likely knew as much about its anatomy as any living vet! These were people performing dentistry and brain surgery.
We're too quick - far too quick - to attribute their religious beliefs to human infancy, when in fact I have my doubts that the loud and bellicose Hitchens would even have had the maturity to understand what it is they actually believed.
"But that cow you think he thinks is hexed? He likely knew as much about its anatomy as any living vet! These were people performing dentistry and brain surgery."
I don't think we can accept this statement at face value, E.
1. We have Biblical accounts of people using sympathetic magic and according it with causative force. An episode that leaps to mind is Jacob placing spotted and speckled sticks in the trough water to induce spots and speckles in the sheep. Ancient Egyptian culture has all manner of curses and sympathetic magic in its burial rites, not to mention other modes of social activity from the riesthood (for good crops, etc.). Roman culture had widespread use of curses and charms. The discussion of charms and curses to manipulate the natural order is fairly well attested to in ancient literature and is not just a recent innovation as you suggest.
2. A farmer today surely knows no LESS about animal husbandy than a bronze-age farmer 3000 years ago. But they surely DO know MORE about the internal biology, epidemiology, chemistry, probability, etc. than that bronze age farmer. Modern farmers are far, far more knowledgeable about their animals' biology than Jacob was, surely.
3. The idea that current veterinarians - people who can actually perform intricate surgery, have access to advanced diagnostic tools, can diagnose myriad ailments and treat them, and are familiar with a very broad range of animals - would know less about animals than the average sheep herder 3000 years ago surely is untenable.
4. While bronze age folks were performing dentistry and brain surgery, records indicate it was only the rarest exception in those societies and then only the most primitive forms of surgery was performed. Those folks knew nothing about germ theory, immunology, etc. Their knowledge of pharmacology was filled with nonsense and superstition, which tended to cloud (as it does with many of today's herbalists) the bits of truth that are in there.
5. Finally, when we think of the understanding of nature, it is easy to forget just how much development we take for granted. You mentioned the Greeks. Yes, they speculated on a lot, including some theories that have proven sound and many that have proven to be nonsense. But they never tested the truth of what they speculated on. And without experimentation to test or demonstrate the validiy of a speculation, it can hardly be called "knowledge". You and I can speculate on any number of things, but without any evidence of it, our speculation can hardly be considered "understanding", even if our speculations turn out to be true, later on.
As examples, consider even Archimedes and Pythagoras. These were guys at the top of their form back in their day - they "invented" many aspects of geometry. Yet they would be amazed at the math taught in any 9th grade high-school geometry class. It couldn't seriously be asserted that they understood math more than we do today.
I'm sure that Bronze age societies know more than we generally give them credit for. The idea that they generally knew MORE about the underpinnings of the natural order is a nice idea, akin to the "noble savage" train of thought, but it really doesn't hold water, I think.
I'm not talking about "noble savages." But actual, practical knowledge.
Case in point:
http://blog.sciam.com/index.php?title=dentistry_but_no_novocaine_in_the_neolit&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
It isn't just the dentistry. It is the fact that whoever did the drilling likely also made the implements to do it.
If you go to a dentist today, that dentist probably has some specific domain knowledge that exceeds that of the neolithic dentist in the link above. For instance, today's dentist knows more about the biology of pulp, nerves, and the jaw.
But your dentist (and mine) would be absolutely helpless without surgical steel implements from a medical supplier.
The neolithic dentist above could go to the local creek, and know where to find the materials needed to make a functional drill.
I was reading the other day in "The Neanderthal Enigma" about a fellow who worked as part of a stone napping team; they provided a surgeon with a scalpel made from the Levallois core chipping technique, and hafted with glue and tendon (the surgeon was doing minor surgery on one of these anthropologists.)
The surgeon remarked that the scalpel worked better than his normal tools. The author noted that Levallois flaked blades have a point - sometimes - no wider than a molecule.
Again, the specific domain knowledge we have today, I don't believe makes Hitchens case for the emotional immaturity of the early people he dismissively belittles. These people - in whatever they may have lacked in terms of abstract cosmological sciences or observational equipment - were no fools.
Without having to be noble savages, they were intelligent people who knew enough not to construct religion out of emotional infancy. Ritual and tradition are as important today as they were then... but where people then practiced ritual that was healthy and reverent (I speak now specifically of the Abrahamic and related traditions), what are our rituals today?
Some good ones. Family gatherings, baptisms, weddings (derived from the rituals of those bronze age peoples.)
And some bad ones. Too much television. Various forms of... idolatry, not to put too fine a point on it.
When you look at the breadth and depth of the philosophical movements that have sprung from ancient religion - from neo-Platonism to Buddhism to the Beatitudes - you have to look comparatively at the shallow materialism and crass arguments of a Dawkins-era world, and find it wanting.
You're equivocating practical knowledge about a particular technical domain with broader and deeper understanding about the natural order. They're not the same.
If they were, I could claim that I know far more about trees than a trained botanist, simply because I happen to be more familiar with the trees in my own back yard.
No one is saying that Bronze age people didn't know more paractical details about certain domains in which they had to operate on a day-to-day basis. As i've said, we don't flintknap or tan leather today, as a rule. Bronze age folks knew how to do that, as a rule.
That is not the same thing as understanding the natural order, however. So the examples you keep providing are not supporting your main argument.
On the other hand, the argument that IS relevant to your position, that Bronze age folks didn't embrace certain religious or superstitious beliefs out of ignorance of the underpinnings of the natural order, is amply refuted by the substantial evidence of superstitious belief espoused in ancient cultures (charms, curses, sympathetic magic, etc.).
I think you mean conflating (unless you actually mean 'equivocating' in its full Macbeth [i.e. dishonest] sense.)
There are ways - real ways - in which you do know more than a botanist about trees. What would some fellow looking at cellulose in a microscope know about moisture levels in softwood lumber? A little perhaps; but there is an old Sufi proverb about an elephant that summarizes my view on the narrowing disciplines we pursue today.
Although Dawkins famously says about this age that we can know more than Einstein or Schrodinger, simply because we come after them, I do not share this view.
I'm not actually convinced that much about the natural order of things. Newton's laws (although we still use them in all their imprecise glory) were completely overturned by Einstein's general and special relativity.
He in turn may fall victim to some improvement of Quantum Mechanics that can explain curved space and relativistic outcomes.
But the further down inside the atom we go, the less we are relying on instrumental observation, and the more we rely on mathematical trickery such as twistors or superstrings.
These things are proof only of our ability to abstract ourselves brilliantly. There is a possibility we took a detour onto the wrong road a few miles back, and that the guy who said we are on the back of a hill of stacked turtles got it right. Don't get me wrong - the odds on that are long. Very, very long. The existentialist in me cannot entirely dismiss the idea that I am actually a very elaborate computer simulation, although I don't much look like Keanu Reeves.
As to the fact that we have past silly superstitions we can point at, that means nothing to me. Demi Moore wears a red string around her wrist. She didn't need to live before Hittites invented iron to adapt it, either.
People first adapted religious belief for reasons far, far more important than explaining why the world exists, or why the river runs. There are endless myths and folktales, many without much of a religious nature at all, to deal with all of that.
There's no reason to believe people adapted religion for reasons any different than we adapt them today. There is a more fundamental 'why' that is asked. That 'why' stares out of the mirror every morning, or in the reflection of a pool of water.
And the answer to that 'why' is as mysterious today as it has ever been.
The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for. CCC:25
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