[Howard Ferstler]

Sander deWaal wrote:

Speaking strictly for myself, I have found some new respect for
Howard.
He showed the capability of independent critical thinking wrt.
religion and its influence on human behaviour.

Many thanks.

I have already revised one of the posted questions: number
seven, dealing with social and personal ethics, needed some
intellectual upgrading with the second from last paragraph.
I had shortchanged both Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky:

Seventh question: is there a danger with having faith-based
ethical systems?

The seventeenth century philosopher Benedict Spinoza, like
the later philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and John S. Mill
(and even, shudder, Karl Marx), felt that religion helps to
keep confused and/or weak people in line. They saw it as a
necessary evil – well, admittedly, not Marx, who saw it as
an opiate. They would probably say that it would be nice if
people had the backbone to admit that the world and reality
are basically unjust, with no redemption (and with everybody
dying at the end), but most of them are just not up to the
task. They need religion (be it Christianity, Islam,
Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, etc.) to offer up a simple
analysis of a complex world.

Believe it or not, if we are talking about society in
general, I tend to agree, and I believe that Spinoza would
be in agreement, too. I think that many individuals are just
not able to deal with reality – and they need a mythology of
some kind to stabilize their lives and give the whole
situation some kind of meaning. That the universe is just
outwardly random and amoral chaos (at least if we are
talking about everyday, common sense analysis) will not do
it for them.

On top of that, they also want to live forever, which may
actually be the bottom-line primary motive for having faith.
On the other hand, atheists are in the not altogether
enviable position of having nothing more than personal
integrity and courage to fall back upon in the long haul. No
afterlife rewards for them. It is scary being an atheist,
because philosophically you are all alone. However, being an
atheist also requires genuine courage, unlike what we have
with those who embrace an all-powerful deity.

Walter Kaufmann, a philosopher who taught at Princeton years
ago, said that while there may be no external god to keep us
in line and offer rewards (or punishments), a nonbeliever
could still live an ethical and courageous life. I think he
was correct, as evidenced by the fact that many nonbelievers
do indeed live ethical and courageous lives. (The
philosopher Aristotle even wrote a book dealing with ethics
that showed that people could be noble and moral, based upon
practical and socially related considerations.) However, on
the macro (as opposed to the micro) level, Nietzsche noted
that if God were eliminated from existing societies all hell
(pun intended) would break loose. The great Russian novelist
Feodor Dostoyevsky also was aware of this. On the micro
level, most people need a belief in God to keep things
personally stabilized, and on the macro level society itself
needs such beliefs to prevent chaos. Kill god, which
Nietzsche said we had already done, and everything is
permitted. Morals go out the window. Some people think this
is responsible for the growth of atheistic fascism in the
20th century.

Of course, some individuals believe that religious systems
have created this situation, and then must remain dominant
to keep the created situation from getting out of control.
If religion had never existed it would be possible to have
ethical societies that based their social behaviors on
feelings for the value of man and the need for order and
justice. (This reflects Aristotle’s approach, for example.)
However, because religion was created and expanded upon by
theologians for hundreds and hundreds of years, societies
have built behavior systems based upon a sense of coercion.
That is, one behaves sanely and correctly because God
desires such behavior. Consequently, take away that belief
in God and all bets are off; anything goes. Theologians have
essentially built a system that depends upon afterlife
rewards (Heaven) and punishment (Hell) to function, and
without those qualities people would go off the deep end.

Interestingly, while Nietzsche, who thought the situation
was untenable and spent quite a bit of time dealing with
this problem and how to solve it in his book-length essays,
Dostoyevsky, who was fully in favor of the religious status
quo, wrote several novels that illustrated just what would
go wrong if people started believing that God was a myth.
Both men were fully aware of the social impact of a belief
in God (independent of any discussion of whether or not he
actually exists), but both came up with different approaches
about what should or should not be done. Nietzsche wanted a
re-evaluation of values and proclaimed the “death of God” in
order to free man, whereas Dostoyevsky wanted society to
renew its faith in God, which he felt would be the only way
to make man truly free.

My take on this is that it is preposterous to believe that
the main reason people are good is because they want to suck
up to God. Being “good” is far more complex than that, and
does not require a belief in God at all. There have been
plenty of good Atheists throughout history, just like there
have been many religious zealots who have been anything but
good.

Howard Ferstler