The Religious Case against Belief
The title was irresistible, and I recognized the author from his Finite and Infinite Games. The author compares and contrasts belief systems and religions.
Belief systems are about answers; belief systems are total, in that they have answers for everything. Belief systems are characterized by boundaries, with a false certainty within the boundary and a willful ignorance about everything outside the boundary. For example, the Young Earth Creationists are certain that the earth is 6,000 years old and are willfully ignorant about geology and carbon dating.
Religions, on the other hand, are about questions ( a “higher ignorance”) rather than answers, and have horizons rather than barriers. A horizon is not a fixed barrier; as one approaches the horizon, the horizon recedes, revealing new territory. In the author’s view, Christianity as a whole is a religion, encompassing the Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant and Evangelical belief systems.
The horizons vs. boundaries imagery is very intriguing, but the author is not very clear on what, other than beliefs, constitutes a religion. In a way, one can’t fault him for being vague, since he says religions are more about questions than answers. This seems just a bit too convenient.
It turns out that the boundary metaphor is recycled from Finite and Infinite Games. The higher ignorance is rather similar to Nicholas of Cusa’s “learned ignorance” from the 1400s. And Wikipedia says of the author:
He does not believe in any God, but describes himself as religious “in the sense that I am endlessly fascinated with the unknowability of what it means to be human, to exist at all.”
That explains it. “In the sense that…” This animal is a cat, in the sense that it barks at the moon. I’m not sympathetic. The purpose of philosophy is to clarify our thinking, and abusing the English language doesn’t help. The book should be titled The Philosophical Case against Belief. A religion without beliefs is indistinguishable from philosophy. A religion with beliefs is on its way to becoming a belief system.
March 8th, 2009 at 12:18 am
“what, other than beliefs, constitutes a religion”
Faith. A set of moral values. A set of stories that illuminate those values.
I think you’re confusing religion with superstition.
“A religion with beliefs is on its way to becoming a belief system.”
Only if the faithful are lazy. It’s easy to embalm a set of beliefs and take comfort in that consistency… but that doesn’t mean it’s inevitable.
Faith is a living thing - it dies when you try to embalm it.