Yes, you should be nice to religious fundamentalists who defend their beliefs reasonably. Here's why.
Simon Blackburn, in this paper (via Crooked Timber), argues that
We can respect, in the minimal sense of tolerating, those who hold false beliefs. We can pass by on the other side. We need not be concerned to change them, and in a liberal society we do not seek to suppress them or silence them. But once we are convinced that a belief is false, or even just that it is irrational, we cannot respect in any thicker sense those who hold it-not on account of their holding it. We may respect them for all sorts of other qualities, but not that one. We would prefer them to change their minds. The matter at hand is respecting religious believers whose belief, one believes, are false.
Harry Brighouse, at Crooked Timber, responds that he does respect Christian believers. That respect consists in:
- some general, hard to define, pro-attitude to them holding that belief (and no preference that they change it).
- a genuine interest in their foundational religious commitments and practices. A
- highly skeptical willingness to consider, and reconsider, our disagreements, if occasion arises (highly skeptical not because I am closed minded, but because I have over the course of a so-far middle-lengthed life, already given them a great deal of consideration, and have a settled view, so would be surprised if it were to change now).
The respect is justified :
What underlies this respect? Some sort of judgment about the condition in which the person holds the sincere belief. Suppose I knew that there was a decisive proof of the non-existence of God that could easily be grasped by the person, and to which they had access. Then, certainly, I would not respect their holding the belief, but would think them either irrational or dishonest. But there is no such decisive proof. Suppose I thought that their belief were merely a rationalization of their own self-interest, or were something they used to justify a sense of superiority over others. Well, I do think this about some Christians, and I do not respect them. But I do not think this about all, or even most, Christians. Rather, I think that some Christians (the ones whose adherence to Christianity I respect) have genuine faith in God, which, though not rationally supportable, is not excluded by straightforward canons of rationality, and their faith is sincere and would survive testing and careful reflection. In that respect it is not unlike my belief in the basic decency of most human beings and our ability radically to improve the quality of social institutions.The condition is something like this. It is possible to respect someone's holding of a false belief if you believe that the person is someone of good will, and who has deliberated carefully, and honestly holds the belief given their non-irresponsible reflection on that deliberation and their personal experience
The condition, I want to suggest, is too narrow. Even if one knows that there is a direct proof for the non-existence of God, and one knows that the Christian believer knows it, it seems to me that if there are good reasons for the claim that God exists, and one has reason to believe that the Christian believer's belief is caused by these reasons, then the believer remains worthy of respect. (On the ground that his belief has been arrived at rationally). That there is decisive evidence for a proposition doesn't make those who do not believe it (or those who believe its negation) irrational.
|
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Show/Hide comments
Show/Hide comment form
I was recently visiting with friends and chanced a conversation between my hosts and a Greek Housemate of theirs. The Housemate was Greek Orthodox, one of my friends was a Christian fundamentalist and the third a lukewarm adherent of one of our now less than fashionable syncretic faiths and the last a Hindu.
For some reason many European people believe that most black people are Muslim, so imagine the spectacle of my friends arguing about whether my black friend (the syncretic) was ashamed of being Muslim or not. The white girl, a Christian , and the Hindu finally conceded and started to inquire on this strange and never heard of Southern African faith. Well, on and on it went, until the Orthodox girl asked,' Has your god come to earth?' Sheepishly my friend answers, 'yes!', and then for good measure she says, 'and she was a woman.' She goes on, to explain how, in the way of these things, her god had taken the form of a human being and in the 1940s-1969 manifested herself in the body of this healer.
The shock and disbelief at the heresy was visible in all the other three girls. That recently? A woman? Miracles? After a period of haggling, during which 'respect' for the 'animist' and her faith was regained, the conversation turned to the Greek girl who the fundie accused of praying like a Muslim (the prostrations) and of idol worship (the icons). The congregation now turned on her, and the very silent Hindu girl and warned them of the consequences of idol worship- it has been written in the Bible, etc. It reminded me of a book I had been given at the beginning of the rise of Christian fundamentalism in Kenya in the early 1990s. In it various people among them Freemasons, Madonna, Catholics, Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses and of course Hindus and Buddhists had been declared Devil Worshippers.
This is the world of faith, a hierarchy of superstitions. Even those of holding on to the most backward, irrational scientifically unsound views (the six day creation, the burning bush, the virgin birth, water into wine, the trinity and so on) can confidently declare that God's spirit was not in Alice Lakwena! Consider the attitude among most of us of people who visit a witchdoctor and then compare it with our attitude to those who attend confession. Why do we respect one and not the other? Why do we look down on Mungiki, Legio Maria and Dini ya Musambwa but think Buddhism is cool? What is the average Kenyan's opinion on Islam? What is the average Muslim's view of Christianity? Which is more improbable, the Islamic view of Jesus or the Christian one?
It seems to me that what we faiths we respect and what we do not, is based not on what we know but what we believe. The harshest atheists, like Dennett or Dawkins, retain at their core a fundamentalism immediately recognisable as not too different from that of the religious fundamentalist.
However, it seems to me that an honest respect of something I know to be a false belief cannot but be hypocritical. This is why for example I would not respect, if I was Haile Selassie, the notion that I was somehow divine. On the other hand it would be intellectually dishonest and arrogant not to respect a position I did not know to be false simply because it challenged my own beliefs. So I do not respect many of the beliefs my friends hold because they are ridiculous, it does not follow that I am an avowed atheist or even a materialist (I am not) but I know that most of our modern religions are lies, and in the same way that I would be dismissive, even disrespectful towards those who believed that a comet was coming to take them home to Jesus, so would I be dismissive of any of the Abrahimic faiths. Why? Because I can readily disprove them.
This is not to say I would be rude or aggressive towards anyone who chose to practise these faiths, or that I would even engage in disabusing them of their comforts. Like Brighouse, been there done that and I suppose if they are not hurting or imposing on anyone, then I can respect their holding their views. The repugnance of fundamentalism and the ugly intolerance of certainty are the same on me the 'unbeliever and kafiri' as they are on a Christian, a Muslim or a Hindu. Like most other people, you will find me somewhere along the respect spectrum, between rage and tolerance.