JOHN PAYNE
Staff Writer
For those of you who do not know who Daniel Dennett or Sam Harris are, briefly they can be introduced as two of the more well-known secular humanist philosopher-scientists who adhere to a purely naturalistic and scientific view of the world. It goes without saying that these two are evolutionists, and it is not my point in writing this article to challenge the tenets of evolution or defend my belief in creation. Dennett and Harris assume that religious faith is arguably irrational and serves little, no or even a negative utilitarian function. Where these two scholars and I stand on common ground is, perhaps, just two major beliefs: free will and the value of rational criticism of religion.
Dennett is an internationally respected and widely published author as well as the director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. Dennett has two purposes: to defend the belief in freewill from a purely atheistic perspective and to defend the value of rational criticism of religious belief.
Both as a libertarian and as a Christian, I agree with and appreciate his belief in freewill and an objective approach to religion. In fact, one of the most admirable things about Pepperdine is its conviction that the truth has nothing to fear from inquiry.
Harris, holds a doctorate in philosophy from Stanford and is working on a doctoral degree in neuroscience at UCLA. Harris’ latest work, “The End of Faith,” won the 2005 PEN award for nonfiction. “The End of Faith’s” thesis is simple and forthcoming: Religion is the primary cause of human conflict and suffering because it is rooted in irrationality and protected from rational criticism.
While I don’t pretend to believe religion has never caused conflict, suffering or death, I will defend my belief that religion is a system of rational thought and that it is responsible for the overwhelming majority of peace, love and happiness in this world.
Considering the number of religious adherents in human history, I am not so much pressed to prove the latter claim, as I am to disprove the former. In fact, what thinkers like Harris and Dennett are really saying when they claim religion to be irrational is that rationality has evolved just like the human race.
Of course, you are all thinking that this is only logical for them to say because it would be more than difficult to argue that we evolved from non-living chemical compounds while our rationality was pre-existent or supernaturally designed.
Not to hide the fact that many people have killed, tortured and oppressed others in the name of God, but the reason people have done so is exogenous to the logical nature of religious thought. In other words, when people have behaved unethically, both by religious and secular humanist standards, it is either because they made a personal decision against their faith or their specific religion’s commands.
Regardless of the reason for unethical behavior, one who believes in freewill must admit that people do not always exercise their freewill in either personally or socially beneficial ways, but this does not make their beliefs irrational.
Thus, if Aristotle is correct in distinguishing the morality of good or evil choices from the rationality of true or false beliefs then Dennett and Harris must reconcile their understanding of freewill with their definition of rationality. Their error in grasping the nature of humanity’s freewill and rationality is precisely the cause for their belief in naturalism. For if man is merely the more advanced animal in the evolutionary chain, then could we still distinguish him as being a free moral agent?
Dennett said he believes the answer is yes because the freewill is merely an alternative construction of what he believes science to affirm: purely organic human consciousness. In “Freedom Evolves,” Dennett states, “It has been tempting over the ages to imagine that these striking differences must be due to the special features of some extra thing (i.e. a soul), installed somehow in the bodily headquarters. We know that tempting as this idea still is, it is not supported in the slightest by anything we have learned about our biology in general and our brains in particular. We are each made of mindless robots and nothing else …”
For those of you who have sufficient reasons to believe Dennett is right, I can only ask that you do not dismiss religion as irrational solely because science has not come up with proof of the immortal soul.
Finally, I would like to address Harris’ concerns that religion is not only irrational, but a curse on human flourishing. For all the wars of the Old Testament, crusades and jihads, there are more untold stories of missionaries, minister and humble servants of the faith who have dedicated their lives to easing suffering, resolving conflicts and loving others in the most important ways.
It is religious faith that calls for care of the most helpless “victims of evolution” those secular systems of thought are quick to ignore or denounces as parasites on society.
This is, of course, my opinion and I invite anyone who either questions Dennett and Harris’s position or mine to keep an open mind as they explore the nature of religious faith, free will, and rationalism or naturalism.
03-23-2006