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Is Life a Tale Told by an Idiot? Probably.
My favorite political commentator, Dennis Prager, recently argued (Explaining the Left) that the hard political Left in the US and most intellectuals in Europe have abandoned traditional religions. To replace what they’ve abandoned, they’ve adopted a false religion of left wing political activism. Prager’s thesis makes a lot of sense to me.
Unhappily, Prager’s unflattering portrait of the Left’s lack of religious affiliations also describes me. That is, what he says of the Left—they have no God, believe most of the Bible is myth, and that death brings oblivion—is what I believe.
I’m uncomfortable, as you might imagine, being an ally of the Left. I want to be with you who believe. But I can’t. If there is such a thing as a religious bone, I lack it. My mom and dad also lacked that bone.
According to Prager, my life should be bereft of meaning. I have no religion and I don’t even have the Left’s politics to fall back on. (I’m even tepid in my right wing politics.) Yet I find life full of meaning. How can this be?
This way: When I was younger, I found significant meaning in teaching, writing, and helping to raise my kids. Now retired, I even find meaning in the commonplaces of daily life: sweeping the porch, doing my crosswords, feeding Ebbie the cat, walking in the evening with Bob the dog. These things are enough for me.
But even if I didn’t find meaning in the pedestrian, the meaning that my wife Marie 💕 lends to my life would be enough.
All well and good. It’s not hard to find meaning in life. Almost everyone does. It’s so easy, we hardly give it a second thought. Those whose find their lives empty sometimes check out of life early. I don’t blame them. If I felt my life was meaningless, I would probably check out early too.
Oddly, though I don’t agree with my favorite philosopher Dennis Prager in this matter, I happen to agree with my least favorite philosopher, the existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre: “Life has no meaning a priori,” Sartre says, “It is up to you to give it meaning.”
Would my life have more meaning if I had a religion? Perhaps. On a trip to Japan a few years back, Marie and I came across a shrine featuring rows and rows of little dolls, probably a thousand of them. Each doll, I was told, represented a dead child. Buddhist mothers and fathers visit these shrines every so often, where they change the little clothes of the dolls that represent their children. I have no doubt that the parents find that modest religious rite not only gives comfort to their lives, but also gives meaning to the loss of their child. We like to think that death makes sense.
There is something else in Prager’s thesis that I also disagree with. This is the idea that society would splinter and degrade without the support of religion. In that, he agrees with the Russian Christian, Fyodor Dostoevsky. Ivan, Doestoevsky’s atheist antagonist in The Brothers Karamazov claims that if there is no God, there are no rules to live by and no moral law to follow—and everything is permitted. Dostoevsky suggests that if Ivan’s philosophy ever became a society’s prevailing philosophy, things would fall apart and “mere anarchy,” in Yeats’ famous phrase, “[would be] loosed upon the world.”
Dostoevsky and Prager needn’t have worried. There are a host of forces outside religion to keep our passions in check and go to support a lawful society. For one thing, those who don’t fear God do fear going to jail. That is a powerful deterrent.
Other non-Christian forces keep us striving for the good. Plato, Aristotle, Zeno and a host of other pagan philosophers may be dead, but their ideas continue to form a part of the culture that we swim in.
And of course, atheists, pagans, and believers alike learn from Jesus, the greatest teacher of them all. The moral law that is taught every Sunday permeates our society and therefore becomes a part of the moral universe, even for non-believers.
For that reason, I’m a enthusiastic supporter of religion, especially the Judeo-Christian variety. There is no doubt in my mind that religion not only improves our moral life, but it also increases social stability and helps to ameliorate our base instincts.
Would I be more moral if I were a believer? Probably not. It’s true, as you probably suspect, that I don’t feel the weight of sin, and I have only a small conscience. But I and other non-believers live in a world of moral imperatives that was created by Jews, Christians, pagan philosophers, atheists, teachers, Boy Scout leaders, and others. All of those influences encourage me to refrain from lying, to contribute to charities, to be nice to people, and so on.
One of those moral imperatives encourages me to be nice to animals. My cat Ebbie is wracked with arthritis in these her latter days. So a few months back I built a little bench for Ebbie so that she could step up more easily into her litter box. (As you might expect, I’m fond of that passage in the Bible where the Deuteronomist commands Jewish farmers to unmuzzle the mouths of their oxen as the animals work. Unmuzzled, the oxen can then eat as they help thresh the farmers’ grain.)
I’m not the greatest moral exemplar of our species. I’m probably somewhere between St. Francis of Assisi on one side, Hitler on the other. My Christian wife is more moral than I am, more generous, and more forgiving—though I’ve always thought that her moral superiority is the result of her sex and her nature rather than her religion.
I even pray occasionally, though I’m almost certain that my prayers waft up and disappear into the ether, unheard and unacknowledged. Prayer is a form of meditation for me. I send my prayers upward. That’s enough for me.
So how do you and I differ in the way we lead our lives? Are you nicer to your spouse, steal less often than I do? Riot and burn cars fewer times than I do? Give to beggars more than I do? I bet you don’t treat your dog and cat as well as I do.
How would my life be different if I were a believer?
Most people on this site are probably religious. Religion and the Right (the two R’s) just seem to go together. I’d like to hear from you. Would your life be less rich without religion? Could you be moral without religion to support your behavior? Or would your life remain much the same?
Are there any others out there in Ricochet land like me? Chime in. I don’t like to feel alone.
Published in General
Duly noted, Kent. I’ll edit the ellipsis, but I sit tall by the rest of what I wrote.
There was once a puddle that gained sentience. Not knowing much – it had just awoken and was, after all, just a puddle – the puddle looked around in amazement at the world it inhabited. The container that held it was perfectly shaped just to fit it. The only rational conclusion that the puddle could reach was that the container, the land, the Earth… even the whole universe had been created to fit its unique shape.
Of course the puddle, sentient though it was, lacked wisdom and knowledge of the ways of the world; it couldn’t realize given that lack of wisdom or experience that it wasn’t the world or the universe that had been designed for it, but that the puddle had taken the shape of its container, and had been doing so for a very long time before it woke up.
The next time you start to think that maybe things are just a little too convenient, just remember that we’re all just puddles.
I’d never thought of it in these terms before, but if you consider that man has free choice at all to navigate his way through life then yes, it is a tale told by an idiot in each and every instance. Full of sound and fury though, although I wouldn’t say it’s signifying nothing.
With apologies for not having waded through the last three pages of replies, I think if you’re asking that question you’re coming at it from the wrong way. Consider the believer in North Korea. A rational calculus of value would lead him to conclude that it’s never worth converting. Any improved morale he’d get would be offset by the chance of commie crackdown. He didn’t convert because he thought it would make his life better, or make society better.
I argue for free markets because freedom is preferable to bondage in every circumstance. It also happens to be true that free markets are the best way to increase societal wealth, but even if they weren’t I’d still be in favor of them.
Hank, I’ve always interpreted the “told by an idiot” to mean that time and chance happen to us all—and that the universe knows nothing of just dessserts. The universe is an idiot. I too am a big fan of free markets.
No, I get that; and I’m not using it in the sense that Macbeth uttered the phrase. I just have an exceedingly low opinion of humanity as a general class. Heck; if I were to write my autobiography I think I’d call it “A Tale Told by an Idiot”.
As Socrates had it, if he had any claim to wisdom himself it was in knowing that he wasn’t wise, which was a step above all the men reputed to be wise that he ever met.
Try Aristotle. There are different moral concepts in ethics. I tend to agree with the likes of Elizabeth Anscombe that a moral law having authority over us is really hard to establish without a transcendent lawgiver. But I also tend to agree that the concept of the proper functioning of the human person doesn’t require a G-d of any kind. That’s the fundamental concept of Aristotelian ethics.
I’ve never looked into it in much detail, but I think that means I’ll have to disagree with people who say no morality at all can be true without G-d, probably including Prager and @andrewklavan.
That well symbolizes an important distinction between theistic and atheistic explanations for life. In monotheism religion, humanity is precious and the reason for all things. In atheistic philosophies, humanity is accidental and just one fine specimen among many.
Of course, either kind of worldview can take various forms with more or less value placed on human lives and divisions marked among them. But in atheism human value is a choice in defiance of nature. In monotheism it is a fact of the natural order.
The consequences of that difference are not universal, but unsurprisingly trend toward different results in values and priorities.
Why just monotheism? Plenty of polytheistic faiths place man at the pinnacle of creation as well.
I feel like you could expound upon this. I will.
Yes: we humans have value in utter defiance of nature. Until a certain point in our development, human beings were just another prey animal, hunted by bears, dire-wolves and terrifying saber-toothed cats. It is not “natural” that man should be on top of the food chain as we are. We aren’t that fast. We’re pretty weak. We don’t have savage claws or fangs or venomous spines to defend ourselves from or to attack other creatures.
What began to set us aside from those lesser creatures is our mastery of technology via our large brains. Human beings had to earn our place on top of the hierarchy which is unique among all other species. This wasn’t a teleological inevitability, but it was a choice. Our value is at least in part defined by our choices.
I’m pretty late to this party, but I want to toss my hat in the ring as being one of those who believes what Kent believes. Great post.
Wow, there are more of “us” on Ricochet than I thought. I say we form a cabal and take over the site.
Don’t talk about Fight Club.
Will you take care of writing the anonymous op-ed for the NY Times?
About a year ago a member put up a post saying something like, “All of us here at Ricochet agree on three fundamental things…” and one of his three points of harmony was a shared belief in God. In the comments there was so much pushback on that item that I don’t think the other two points, or the larger point of the post, were discussed at all.
Which ones?
Polytheistic religions place humans as higher than other animals (reincarnation excluded) yet as mere playthings of the gods. The relationship between gods and man does not afford the same dignity or significance.
If humanity is merely an impressive but happenstantial product of evolution, then the social bond too is just an instinct amenable to biological reproduction. It serves the species, rather than the individual.
In monotheism, self-interest actually (if not in perception, amid fleeting desires) matches the purposes of one’s design. If people are designed for love, then service of others and service of self are the same. Without design, the limits of self-creation being determined largely by technological advancement and strength of will, one’s self-selected purpose can be unmoored from nature and enacted without regard to community, or in spite of it.
“Will to power” needn’t lead to selfish abuse of fellow persons, of course. But it would indeed be an admirable feat of intellect and willpower to set instincts aside (or to deliberately but selectively embrace them).
In Christianity too, the concept of original sin (inherent imperfection and need of redemption) makes necessary willful domination of instincts. But without an omniscient and omnipotent moral judge, conscience reflects self-mastery and self-chosen interests rather than an inescapable order which reason must discover rather than invent or adopt among options.
One might logically substitute a government, family, business, research, or whatever else in place of oneself as one’s highest priority. An atheist can choose to be philanthropic. But if this earthly life is all and one is not beholden even in secret to a cosmic order, then conscience and public behavior needn’t harmonize.
One of my favorite college professors, and favorite people, was an atheist. He was a generous, delightful, and honest man. About the same time I dabbled in atheism for a couple years. I certainly don’t expect all atheists to reach the same conclusions or to live in the same ways. One’s religious or philosophical beliefs are not strictly deterministic.
But speaking for myself, as someone who is naturally detached in serious considerations, I would have been a monster had I remained faithless. Like a communist or a Democrat, I would have destroyed people I disliked or opposed as if they were gnats… because empathy is just a dumb animal instinct, to be embraced or discarded at will. Unlike Christianity, atheism favors tribal morality. Love of enemies is not a consequence of cold logic.
#mealso
I am an agtheist myself. But Christianity has done far more good than bad.
There are atheists who will claim that they could produce a moral society without God. There are religious people who insist that you can’t.
Unfortunately, our sample size is too small to extrapolate meaningful data.
Sarcasm?
This presumes that “loving our enemies” is either positive or a universal good. Clearly, there are limits.
I’d believe it when I saw it. YMMV.
I was going for ‘arch’.
ST, your description that we swim in societal Judeo-Christianity/theism/natural law from the Greeks is an apt one. I’ve heard this referred to – sometimes disdainfully – as America’s ‘civil religion’, but the fact that it’s here allows for a full range of beliefs – or none – and often encourages internalization, not imposition of them. I’ve seen it in action…Thanks for jumpstarting the thought.
Enjoyed the first two links. Thank you.
Oh, thanks!
Terrible quality video in any number of respects. Just that weirdo and his cell phone. The cartoons on his channel are much higher quality. There’s even an all-original philosophical dialogue featuring robots!
And what channel might that be good sir?
“Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God.”
(TeacherOfPhilosophy on YouTube [my channel].)
I dropped that line at a Magic draft once. Freaked the “There is no God and I hate Him” atheist out.
This is a true treat, ST…Enjoy! Augie, you done good! :-)
Well, “loving our enemies” was one of the Christian notions that Hitler specifically mentioned as antithetical to his project (and contemptible too).
Not to get all Clintonian on you, but it depends on what you mean by “love.” If you mean “being nice to” or “allowing them to hurt me/other people” then obviously there are a lot of limits. (My husband doesn’t and shouldn’t “love” me in that second way!) But that’s because “love your neighbor” (let alone your enemy) is—again—the single most challenging three word command any deity could utter. This explains, by the way, the high failure rate.
Or, if begin from the not-Unchristian premise that People Suck, the amazing thing isn’t that we fail. The amazing thing is that we ever even get within smelling distance of succeeding.
Or love needs to be rethought.
In Plato and Boethius the death penalty is described as an act of mercy to the executed criminal.