Dana Payne
Dr. Adam Johns
Seminar In Composition
9/23/08
Why do humans find it necessary to have faith in that which cannot be proven real? With the more recent advancements in science and technology, those who devoutly follow a religion are ridiculed more severely than ever. Lee Silver does not put his harsh opinion delicately when he insinuates that those who are well educated do not believe in a higher power, and he uses the phrase “well educated” throughout his book. Frankly, it is insulting to us believers that also consider themselves very well educated and very well informed. Immanuel Kant claims that it is out of cowardice and lack of resolve that we fail to develop our own logic and our own ideas, but what if we possess this free thinking and continue to follow to an extent because it is what we choose? Perhaps there are people who do not fear the “danger that threatens them” if they choose to break free of the mold created for us. Though both Marcuse’s and Silver’s arguments can be used to suggest that people follow a religion for fear of eternal damnation, I will always believe that some people follow the word of God because they choose to, not because they fear denying it. What happened to the innocence of pure faith?
Throughout Marcuse’s argument on enlightenment, he suggests that the unenlightened follow the “guardians of the great masses” because of cowardice, apathy, and the idea instilled into them thanks to their “guardians” that to step outside of their realm of normalcy into one of independent reason is dangerous and challenging. Leaders teach this in order for the masses to silently obey. If free thought is rare, then so is opposition. One of those dangers that awaits those who doubt commonly held beliefs, lets say faith in God for example, is eternal retribution within the fiery pits of Hell. We are told by the reverend or preacher to believe and practice the teachings of God or else you will regret it whilst burning forever. An example of this is one of the most terrifying sermons I have ever read which was written and delivered by a Puritan minister named Jonathan Edwards to his congregation. Edwards actually comes from the same time period as Kant; his sermon was written in 1741. This sermon is fittingly titled, “Sinner in the Hands of an Angry God.” In this highly controversial speech, he speaks to his congregation claiming that they all know that they are sinners. He goes on to speak to his congregation saying:
“The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some
loathsome insect, over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times so abominable in his eyes as the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince: and yet ‘tis nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment: ‘tis to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep: and there is no other reason to be given why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God’s hand has held you up: there is no other reason to be given why you han’t gone to hell since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship: yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you don’t this very moment drop down into hell” (Edwards 10-11).
In other parts of his sermon, he tells his congregation that devils await them as lions await their prey and that, again, it is only the will of God that keeps them from being devoured. Since people are taught to fear God, they willingly follow to postpone or avoid altogether the horrible fate waiting in the home of Lucifer. Though, with sermons like these it is not hard to see why one might follow out of fear. I agree with Marcuse in his beliefs that cowardice and apathy keep people from reasoning logically and thinking beyond the teachings of our “guardians”--teachings mostly used to frighten people into submission.
When I, on the other hand, consider the church services I attended, they had a very different atmosphere than the one likely felt in Jonathan Edwards’s church. As a young girl, I sat in my Sunday morning service, surrounded by beautiful windows that showed stories brought to life by the glowing colors. Countless candles held small, dancing flames throughout the room. Many different people filled the chruch, smiling and greeting each other with genuine warmth--warmth which I in turn felt because of the palpable sense of community which unified us all as “children of God.” After having mingled and chatted with friends new and old, we took our seats to listen to our pastor. Every Sunday, as I listened, I was constantly befuddled by one repetitive term: “God-fearing.” According to this serious, stern man before me, all who called themselves “good Christians” were “God-fearing.” I could not understand how a place of such warmth and happiness could be the house of one whom we mortals were supposed to fear. The “God” in whom I believed was not cruel or wrathful; he wanted us to be happy and comforted, not in terrified awe of his existence. Through he and his son we were taught benevolence, forgiveness, and to love each other in spite of our human flaws. Was it not enough to believe in God because I believed those lessons? Was it necessary that I lived in constant fear of sinning, and, thereby, condemning myself to eternal agony? I began to wonder, if I was supposed to be afraid of God, then was I believing in the wrong one?
This relates to one of Silver’s passages that caught my attention immediately: “The carrot-and-stick implication is clear: follow the rules, pledge allegiance to Jesus, and you will live forever...otherwise you and your body will be reconstructed solely to be burned alive so that serious suffering will definitely occur...” (Silver 14). Although I do not really like Silver’s book and his belittling nature, I do agree with this theory. Most of the “unthinking mass” mentioned by Kant does believe in religion in order for the reward of an everlasting utopia after their mortal lives end. Oftentimes, people will follow, believe, or do as long as they are promised their reward. Cynical? Yes. True? Very.
After that moment of cynicism, I admit that I would like to believe that there are some of us that believe in God because we genuinely agree with the lessons and teachings, and though we have seen all of the evidence and all the proof against God, we still choose to believe, not for fear of retribution, but because we have true, pure faith. Though Silver is brilliant, I do not believe that he could understand a concept like innocent faith. He would call it naive. I retort that his empirical sciences, statistics, and polls cannot measure pure faith, because it is emotional, and emotionality is something that Silver does not seem to comprehend, making his opinions easy for me to overlook. I hold that Silver cannot see life through anything other than reason, statistics, and biotechnology, therefore, I do not respect his ideas as much as I could. Being the romantic that I am (in the traditional sense), I believe that life and things like religion are about more than just reason. Traditional romanticism embraced the aesthetic and shunned reason, placing emphasis on emotionality and beauty. Perhaps, Silver should broaden his narrow scope by looking into it.
3 comments:
Silver is a scientist. His work involves addressing problems and proving solutions. Everything that Silver does is empirical, and so, in his book Challenging Nature, he challenges the idea of faith as well. Faith is not something that can be proved or tested. It is just something loosely defined that one must have. He questions the education level of people because he does not see how people that believe in empirical science can also believe in God. His insults are not claiming that the religious observers lack intelligence, but rather that they lack data to support their findings. As a scientist this is understandable. Before taking insult, it is essential to look at where the author is coming from.
It is also essential to look at the main idea, not the means of getting there. For example, Kant thought that people needed to be free in thinking. Perhaps what he is challenging is the tradition and stagnation of religion.
Silver is saying that there is a large mass of people that do as they are told to gain the benefits. Kant thinks that this large mass of people should first think for themselves, have faith based on things that they know and experiences that they have had; not things they have merely seen others do. However, in my experience with the masses, they do not do things simply to gain the rewards. Rewards seldom mean very much to the general public. If the reward of salvation was really people’s motive, I would think that the rate of obesity would be much lower. If people were so concerned with the condition of their souls and the comfort of their minds, I do not think that they would subject themselves to such unhealthiness. Perhaps, the masses are simply following the masses; the very thing that Kant and Silver suggest.
Kant and Silver are not out to abolish religion. They merely question its foundations. It is hard to understand from an empirical stand point, something that is not based on any means of proof. Maybe there is a God out there, but until we find him it is essential to think for ourselves, learn what we can, and worry about the lives that we are living, not the future we may encounter.
Kristine - excellent response, one which certainly could have led to an even more complicated and interested paper from Dana.
Dana - I think your fundamental approach, arguing that faith is something which can be (rationally?) chosen, is excellent. Your discussion of Edwards is smart: you are conceding considerable ground to Kant, especially since you are implicitly acknowledging that sermons of Edwards' kind would have been fairly common during his time (not to mention the fact that religion was used by the state to control the people!). Your use of Edwards keeps the paper complex and interesting.
Your paragraph on your own experience of a loving vs. wrathful good is solidly on-topic, but maybe a little wordy or unfocused, strictly as a paragraph.
So, I believe that your main idea, and your nuanced discussion of it by way of Edwards, is very good.
What you don't do is allow yourself to be challenged at all by Silver, even though Christine has given you some great illustrations of how you might do so. Maybe Silver doesn't understand emotion, of course, or romance - but then again, his purpose is to advocate *for reason*.
Maybe he does belittle religion, as you argue, but as Christine points out, he has a particular worldview and agenda which leads him into that argument. Rather than just belittling him back, whether he deserves it or not (which you do both at the beginning and the end), you might have taken one of these two approaches.
1) You might have argued that faith, in fact, *is* reasonable - that your own faith in a loving rather than a wrathful God is rational and (possibly) even Kantian.
2) You might have presented an argument for why we shouldn't care whether faith is reasonable or not.
This is still good work, especially because of your skilled use of Edwards, but your grappling with Silver is imperfect.
Like I just told you while we were walking, Silver is moot in my mind because of his lack of emotional fiber. Society places too much precedent on scientific intelligence over emotional intelligence, which is something Silver would call naive, immature, or outright useless. This is, in my eyes, Silver's loss of credibility. It is pride and my own very stubborn opinions and passion with which I regard the importance of emotionality that kept me from extending Silver's argument. It's just very hard to bring in support for the values of emotional intelligence and the fact that, in my opinion, Silver lacks it.
Post a Comment