PZ Myers. 2005 Sep 30. Sam Harris…on dope. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/sam_harris_on_dope/>. Accessed 2008 Sep 05.
Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Friday, September 30, 2005
Sam Harris…on dope
I have my doubts about Sam Harris. The Raving Atheist links to his latest essay.
He seems to get a fair amount of play as one of those outspoken atheists, but then everything I read by him turns out to have some bizarre twist that has me wondering what the heck he's been smoking. He writes weird stuff like this peculiar defense of "rational mysticism".
As a worldview, secularism has defined itself in opposition to the whirling absurdity of religion. Like atheism (with which it is more or less interchangeable), secularism is a negative dispensation. Being secular is not a positive virtue like being reasonable, wise, or loving. To be secular, one need do nothing more than live in perpetual opposition to the unsubstantiated claims of religious dogmatists. Consequently, secularism has negligible appeal to the culture at large (a practical concern) and negligible content (an intellectual concern). There is, in fact, not much to secularism that should be of interest to anyone, apart from the fact that it is all that stands between sensible people like ourselves and the mad hordes of religious imbeciles who have balkanized our world, impeded the progress of science, and now place civilization itself in jeopardy. Criticizing religious irrationality is absolutely essential. But secularism, being nothing more than the totality of such criticism, can lead its practitioners to reject important features of human experience simply because they have been traditionally associated with religious practice.
Hold it. He has just criticized secularism for being 'negative'…by being negative about secularism. How ironic of him.
His criticisms are completely off the mark, however. Why isn't secular a positive virtue? I certainly think of it as a very good thing; it's part of being reasonable and wise, and is not at all in contradiction to being loving. I hear the word "religious" as non-virtuous and in opposition to wisdom and reason…is my negative response sufficient argument?
He also sets up secularism as nothing but "perpetual opposition" to religion. That's complete nonsense, an unthinking acceptance of the definition used by the religious. Secularism is about reality. We accept our day-to-day existence, the empirical, observable, measurable, physical world as a worthy and important and all-encompassing feature of our lives, without reference to invisible, imaginary, immaterial, and inconsequential confabulations by the irrational. That's a very positive thing to do.
Negligible appeal? Since when are sex, food, conversation, books, entertainment, football, science, and fashion under the purview of religion? When these things are put under the control of the religious, that's when they lose their appeal. The ways of the flesh are always popular.
Negligible content? Harris has divided the domains of human concern into the religious (mumbo-jumbo, old books, strange and arbitrary rules, and bizarre beliefs about things no one has ever seen) and the secular (the whole freaking universe and all that dwells within it, science, history, literature, the seen and sensuous) and decided that all of the intellectual content is in the former.
What???
Up there at the top, I said I had my doubts about Harris. I was wrong. I have no doubts at all.
He's a dingbat.
- That was quite the surprise - what did my 3 year old do now? Then I realized that he wouldn't come up with such crap, so it must be some other Sam Harris.
- By far the greater part of secularism has nothing to do with religion at all, not referencing it or being or acting in opposition to it -- it's religion that continually wades in and tries to start a fight with it. At which point secularism typically turns the other cheek, something, ironically, that religion seems incapable of doing.
-
SH: Most atheists appear to be certain that consciousness is entirely dependent upon (and reducible to) the workings of the brain. In the last chapter of the book, I briefly argue that this certainty is unwarranted. I say this as one who is deeply immersed in the neuroscientific and philosophical literature on consciousness: the truth is that scientists still do not know what the relationship between consciousness and matter is.
Is this claim a.)true and/or b.)relevant? My impression is that while we cannot claim a full understanding yet, scientists have certainly made a great deal of progress toward understanding these relationships. While we may not understand the "source" of consciousness, we are now able to manipulate it through chemical and mechanical means, and barring any further developments, there is no evidence yet that any non-material explanations should be necessary. If anything, non-material explanations of phenomena (transcendence, etc.) have given way to material ones (endorphins, etc.). Is this just another case where scientists working diligently toward an answer to a problem get knocked along the way for not having solved everything yet?#: Posted by on 09/30 at 10:35 AM -
the truth is that scientists still do not know what the relationship between consciousness and matter is.
Looks like a version of the God of the gaps only without a god.
The ID of the gaps?
Whether "scientists do not know" (NB that "still" ... What is he hiding behind there?) or "atheists are certain" (Are they? Who?) has no bearing on what actually exists or how it works. One of those omphaloskeptics who think we (What you mean "we"?) create reality by consensus might think it does, but no.
This looks just as floundery as the Missing Link or abiogenesis arguments from the religious, and like those seems to come from someone who can't tolerate uncertainty.#: Posted by Ron Sullivan on 09/30 at 10:43 AM -
Is there any chance that Mr. Harris has been channeling Ken Wilber?
#: Posted by on 09/30 at 10:52 AM
-
OK, Harris' take on "secular" is nuts, but I don't quite agree with yours either:
Secularism is about reality. We accept our day-to-day existence, the empirical, observable, measurable, physical world as a worthy and important and all-encompassing feature of our lives, without reference to invisible, imaginary, immaterial, and inconsequential confabulations by the irrational.
In the socio-political context, at least, "secularism" just means that whatever my beliefs may be about the supernatural, mystical, gods, etc, I decline -- even oppose -- the use of economic or political power to make others kow-tow to them. And on that definition, even many religious people are "secular", having read enough history to realize that imposing belief generally turns out badly.#: Posted by on 09/30 at 10:57 AM -
"He also sets up secularism as nothing but "perpetual opposition" to religion. That's complete nonsense, an unthinking acceptance of the definition used by the religious. "
I'm afraid I'm going to be misunderstood, but I'll try anyway.
First of all, I've never liked Harris' writing. And for many of the reasons you mention. However, when you look at the origins of the terms "secular" and "secularism," I think it is very problematic, or it should be problematic to use in the context you use it in.
Again, I have no problem with the set of ideas you assigned to the term "secularism." The problem is the history and derivation of the word itself and whether it is appropriate in this context. I submit it is not. The following is based on definitions from the Oxford English Dictionary, and other readings.
"Secular" comes from an ancient word coined by the Catholic Church to describe priests who were not cloistered. It later began to acquire the meaning of "not pertaining to the divine." In short, the religious defined the word because they invented it. Now, historically, the word has at least two (for your purposes) unpleasant meanings:
1. "Secular" assumed the division of reality into a wordly domain and a transcendent divine domain. Historically "secular" clearly implies that both exist. You wish to assert the existence of one domain. "Secular," by definition, contradicts that.
2. "Secular," in its long historical usage, defines a negative, something that is not. It does not define positive values, except to the extent those values are defined negatively as not within the purview of a divine provenance.
To make matters worse, the entirely separate word "secularism" has its own far-from-helpful history. As far as I can tell, it was coined in 1846 by George Holyoake in England who had just been released from jail for the "crime" of atheism. He formed "The British Secular Institute of Communism and Propagandism " to advocate "secularism."
In short, at its birth, the term "secularism" was associated with "communism." Regardless of your views on Marx or communism, it's a fact that in American politics, association with communism is the kiss of death.
If Harris is unfamiliar with the etymology of these words, I assure you that the religious right knows exactly where these words come from and what they meant. It is part and parcel of a sophisticated rhetorical assault.
(The phrase "secular humanism" also has an interesting history; basically, it was coined by a Supreme Court judge, then defined by the right to bash liberals over the head, and then adopted - probably unknowingly - by some of their opponents.)
So what's wrong with simply defining "secular" and "secularism" the way we want to? Well, it means fighting an uphill rhetorical battle against all their accumulated historical meanings, especially negative ones. For example, Harris' essay - consciously or not - taps into the negative aspects of the words - "secular" is not pertaining to the divine, it is opposed to something rather than standing independently for something.
While I know this is not a popular suggest, I suggest that the word be abandoned. It's a church word and really doesn't get at the core of the worldview and values "secularists" stand for. There are legitimate uses for "secular" and "secularism" but they are constrained to issues directly connected to religion, not to a worldview that asserts a consistent phyical reality independent of the existence of other worldviews -such as religious ones - that assert something different.
What to use instead? Well, that's a problem. One could use realist, or humanist, or scientific humanist, or a bunch of others. None seems quite adequate. But simply leaving "secular" to fester is, I think, worse.
Again, I am not disagreeing with the values of "secularism" as you describe it. I am questioning the terminology. I do think it is not just semantics to find a replacement as the terms have associations which are easily manipulated by malicious opponents. And one thing that is certain is that the religious right is a very malicious opponent. -
SH: Most atheists appear to be certain that consciousness is entirely dependent upon (and reducible to) the workings of the brain. In the last chapter of the book, I briefly argue that this certainty is unwarranted. I say this as one who is deeply immersed in the neuroscientific and philosophical literature on consciousness: the truth is that scientists still do not know what the relationship between consciousness and matter is.
We have yet to see a reliable report of a consciousness without a brain, and we have plenty of demonstrations of aspects of consciousness and cognition that are impaired by brain damage. It is pretty certain that you need a brain to be conscious. (unless, of course you define consciousness as the ability to react to your environment, in which case all life forms are as conscious as they need to be)
Now, the fact that all thoughts are embodied in the electrochemical workings of the brain is often depressing to those who want to believe in some kind of supernatural nature to thought. I really don't get this. They seem to feel that it diminishes the thought itself, that it is "just a chemical reaction". Of course, they don't seem to mind the effects that chemicals like ethanol has on these thoughts, so there.#: Posted by on 09/30 at 11:45 AM -
tristero - I agree with what you say (mostly, anyway!) One of the issues of defining a group as atheist, secularist or any similar word is that you're defining a group according to a criteria it finds conceptually unimportant. It's not unlike asking a nudist who his favorite shirt-maker is; he may have an opinion, but it's hardly relevant to him or to society.
So I'd suggest we don't try to define people as secularist or anything else except as a passing reference; I'm an atheist, a cyclist, an analyst and a rower, yet none of them comes even close to defining me. -
This is too much nitpicking over words. Do we also think that when someone defines themselves as religious, they're using criteria that they find conceptually unimportant?
All words are going to carry this freight of historical baggage. If we're going to go shopping for new terms that are unencumbered, we're going to look forever, and no matter what we do, we're going to strike unintended notes. Look at that godawful alternative to "atheist" that some people came up with: "brights"? Aaargh. That was truly pukeworthy.
So what can we do? We make do. We take the words and make them our own and give them better meanings. Where "secular" was once a term used by the religious to demarcate what they thought was important from those trivial worldly matters, we can embrace this very useful term and show that their trivia is what really matters.
We don't let flakes like Sam Harris pretend that the secular is "negligible". -
I remember when I was a kid and I discovered the two words “fiction” and “non-fiction” for the first time. I felt vaguely cheated that there was a unique word for the made-up stories, but for the REAL stories there was only a derivative – a term which had meaning only in opposition to the made-up stories.
I conjecture that we came up with a word for story-telling before we came up with a word for fact-telling only because fact-telling was mixed in with the everyday realness of life, and nobody thought of even giving it its own word until after the distinction was made necessary by the existence of story-tellers. And then it seemed natural to use the derivative term.
Yet some part of me still thinks there should be a unique word for the true stuff, the real stuff, and it should be the made-up stuff that has to suffer the derivative term.
Despite being a big fan of fiction, I know that the field of non-fiction is vaster than anything fiction can ever approach. Non-fiction has a reality, a basis, an independent ground of existence that fiction does not and can never have.
I feel somewhat the same way about “religious” and “secular.” (Despite the fact that the word “secular” is not a derivative, apparently some of us are convinced that the meaning behind it is.)
We all know what “religious” means. To me, “secular” translates not just as “the other stuff from religion” – but more like “the real stuff, the true stuff.”
“Secular” might be popularly defined merely in opposition to religion, but the field of meaning and practice it encompasses has a trueness, a realness, vaster and more profound than anything religion can ever approach.
“Secular” has an independent ground of existence that “religious” does not and can never have. -
PaulH,
The issue is that the terms "secular" and "secularism" have a history that contradicts the definitions PZ, and others, want to use. Since it describes a dualism between the sacred and the not-sacred, "secular" implies the existence of the divine. That clearly is not what is intended by PZ's usage of the word. Likewise "secularism" has unfortunate associations with communism, which are also unintended, and all but unknown, by modern American advocates of a worldview grounded entirely in physical reality.
And that is the problem. The right plays off these associations -which they are quite aware of - which have nothing to do with what PZ Myers wants the word to mean. He wants "secularism" to describe a worldview that is positive, filled with moral and intellectual virtues that are, in some sense, rooted in a celebration of the physical. The problem is that "secular" is, historically, the wrong word to describe such a worldview because, by defiinition, it pertains to the not-divine, which implicitly recognizes its existence.
It is not by accident that it is the religious right who have been the most enthusiastic users of these terms to smear their opponents. If we are to use these words as PZ suggests, the re-definition must be explicitly stated. But why bother fighting uphill when it is the reigious right who should be on the ropes? Better to find a more accurate set of terms. -
When I'm asked what I am, I just say I'm a naturalist. Not the practicing kind (my B.S. is in Computer Science and Geography), but rather the philosophical kind. To me, secularism is what amount to a system of government that is neutral on matters of religion.
#: Posted by on 09/30 at 12:43 PM
-
Hank Fox,
"To me, “secular” translates not just as “the other stuff from religion” – but more like “the real stuff, the true stuff.”"
Exactly. That's what it means to you but historically, that's not what it meant. In fact, it may have meant the exact opposite, if the world is illusion and the only truth is God. And that is the problem.
PZ Myers,
Fair enough. "Brights" stunk worse than "secularists." However, it had one major advantage: "Brights" didn't have any historical baggage that could enable Harris, or anyone else, to say brights focus, by definition, on the mundane and trivial.
To employ "secular" in the way you and others want, it really should be deliberately, and consciously redefined as a new word, a homonym in comparison to the ancient one. That's fine, but it is an awful lot of hassle and it won't stop someone like Harris or Dobson from insisting upon the older meanings, which are not ones you agree with. Sure, Dobson won't be deterred by a word change, but why hand him a rhetorical advantage right at the start?
"Brights" might have been the wrong word - I think it was. But the reasoning behind it was rather, er... bright.
(For what it's worth, the religious right have a similar problem with their use of the word "supernatural." I've heard a video of Dobson going through hoops to get his viewers to understand he wasn't talking about haunted houses. I suspect that soon they'll find a word with less baggage to describe what they are talking about, whatever that might be.) -
I tend to use whatever word communicates most clearly with whomever I'm talking to. If I want to convey my godlessness to a nutjob, I say I'm an atheist. If I want to convey my rejection of ideology or revealed truth, I say I'm an agnostic. Lately, I'm quite fond of the anglo-saxon directness of "freethinker" in social situations.
People like Harris remind me of the mob in "Life of Brian," all shouting in unison, "Yes! We're all individuals!"
A colleague found out I was a freethinker, and asked me if I'd like to join his atheism discussion group. I should have said, "Okay, but I'm only available on Sunday mornings. Shall I bring an instrument in case we want to make some music?"
Don't talk to me about your secularism, or atheism, or humanism, or whatever, in the the context of some kind of authentic group movement. It doesn't work like that. But then, maybe the self-descriptor I'm looking for is "misanthropist." I'll just bugger off then. -
Perhaps what PZ is advocating is a "taking back" of the term from the religious (even though the term never belonged to the non-religious in the first place as tristero has pointed out). Perhaps in the way the homosexual community has turned slurs like queer into badges of honor. In doing so they have empowered themselves and placed the bigots on their heels. Words have their own history, but language is constantly evolving. It is possible to turn the weapon around and proudly identify with what your opponent felt was a slander. You can render their slur meaningless, attract attention and converts to your banner while unsettling an opponent now-deprived of a convenient hammer.
#: Posted by Sculptorsam on 09/30 at 01:41 PM
-
HP,
Certainly. The point is not you personally, but politically. I suspect I share your distate of marketing; after all, whatever worldview goes by the name of "secularism" doesn't get altered by a mere name change.
Nevertheless, it may be distasteful, but it is quite important. -
augghh!
This is similar to "materialism". In the philosophical sense it means the rejection of the supernatural, but in common usage it's something closer to greedy.
I wonder how long it took Hubbard to come up with the term "Scientology?" Man, that one stuck. What a great bullshit artist that guy was, huh?#: Posted by on 09/30 at 01:48 PM -
Tristero, if we leave off for a few minutes falling all over ourselves over the "historic" definition, and correcting everyone in sight about how wrong they are to use it in a new way, we might realize that the word CAN BE REDEFINED in popular usage if enough people simply start using it that way.
Yes, you have a point. But here's this other point: You're placing yourself in the godder camp by insisting that this word is not plastic enough to take on new meaning (or that we can't bring new emphasis to a meaning which already exists) ... and the lot of us will continue to be stuck with religion as the only ground of argument on this particular issue.
The godders are already winning the battle over the popular-usage definition of "theory." Don't be the guy who helps them control the meaning of "secular." -
Heck, "to prove" used to simply mean "to test", without the connotation of demonstrating truth.
"dirty" used to refer to items soiled by feces. As in diapers were "dirty" but laundry in general would be "soiled"
The list goes on and on.#: Posted by on 09/30 at 02:08 PM -
I think PZ has been a little harsh with Sam Harris.
My read on the Harris excerpt is that secularism as a doctrine is generally viewed as a negative stance. But the key is that by "negative" Harris means a stance about the absence of something as opposed to a stance about the presence of something, and not negative in the sense of bad. It is the difference in saying "not there" vs. "not good". So, by this account, to be a secularist, all you need to do is not believe in the supernatural. You needn't do any more than that: just not believe. (And let's assume that by secular Harris we mean non-believer, ok folks?)
And he argues that this, in of itself, is unnattractive to many. There is no doctrine or creed or behavioral directives in secularism to grasp onto; he describes this as "no content".
Now PZ sees it differently: for him secularism is all wrapped up with PZ-valued things like reason, science, awe, football, fashion, etc. But those are not necessarily part and parcel of secularism; it just so happens to be PZ Myers's version of his secularism. Harris's point is that when one orders "Secularism" off the menu of belief systems, the waitress brings them a big steaming bowl of nothing. Harris worries about this because he wishes everyone would become secularists and he knows most people will think this absence of content devalues secularism.
What PZ Myers has and shares so well on this site is more than mere secularism, it is a sort of a mixture of naturalistic zeal, science boosterism, and bonhomie. I absolutely applaud it, but I'm not sure that "secularism" really captures all that.#: Posted by on 09/30 at 02:25 PM -
Actually, "secular" meant "belonging to (this) century", "involved in everyday life". It did not imply "the existence of the divine" in any special way. It was in opposition to the supposed "timelessness" of life in a monastery, and only applied to the clergy.
The rest of society was "lay" (and still today, the English word "secular" most closely translates to "laicità", "laity", in Italian).
I tend to agree with PZ: every word has baggage, if you allow your opponents to define it.
(word for posting: "agnostic")#: Posted by on 09/30 at 02:37 PM -
talking of words and usurping of meaning, i've wanted to ask science-y folks something for a while now...when i was a kid in india, we learnt about global warming and greehouse gases...when and how did this change from 'warming' to 'climate change'? i saw a pbs documentary recently on how this change was suggested to republicans by some kind of strategy "consultant" who studies subconcious effects of words on people's emotional reactions...but how come even the scientists use 'climate change' consistently these days? if scientists started doing this inadvertantly, that sounds like a damn good example of introducting a brand new term into the public discourse...
#: Posted by on 09/30 at 02:47 PM
-
HP: Don't talk to me about your secularism, or atheism, or humanism, or whatever, in the the context of some kind of authentic group movement. It doesn't work like that.
Actually, HP, atheist meetups are a really powerful form of activism. While it's important to fight the encroachment of religion into government in the courts, this does little for the acceptance or popularity of atheism. Besides, organizing atheists is like herding cats.
However, getting cats to show up at feeding time is pretty simple. I highly recommend atheist meetup groups like those at organized through meetup.com.
What do we do at meetups? Eat, drink and be merry. We discuss science, philosophy, art, movies, whatever. That's my kind of activism!
I know atheists who have come out of the closet to their families or been more overt in their atheism since they started attending my small meetup group. This is just the ticket, IMHO. I'm convinced that most people who don't like atheists think they don't know any.#: Posted by doctor(logic) on 09/30 at 03:23 PM -
Aureola Nominee, FCD:
If you type into a google search box define:secular you will encounter the most common meanings of "secular" as:
"Not religious."
"an item that is free of religion."
"material & worldly as opposed to spiritual; thus ANYTHING not religious."
And ones like this, both as adjective and noun:
"1) in relation to clergy, priests living in the world, not under a rule, who are bound by no vows and may possess property, working under the authority of a bishop: 2) more generally, refers to people who are not clergy, the laity"
Definitions like "belonging to this century" also appear but the other definition is more common.
"Secular" most definitely implies the existence of the divine, not only in the religious sense of "priests living in the world" but also in "things not regarded as religious or spiritual" which means there exist two classes of things - those that are religious/spiritual and secular ones that aren't. -
For me, I actually like the terminology given us by a white house comment some months back: the Reality-based community.
I think it a perfectly fine, and even superior term, contrasting with the faith-based community construct so prevalent in common speech by the politicos of the day. It can lead one directly to the 'hold out two hands, wish in one, c*** in the other, which one fills up first' comments.#: Posted by John M. Price on 09/30 at 03:44 PM -
tristero:
Thanks, but we were talking about the origin of the word, and the one I gave you is *the* origin of the word. The other meanings were added subsequently, and clearly still more can be added to it.#: Posted by on 09/30 at 03:53 PM -
If you build a bridge in the future, why is it taken for granted that the bridge will be faulty?
PZ says: All words are going to carry this freight of historical baggage. If we're going to go shopping for new terms that are unencumbered, we're going to look forever, and no matter what we do, we're going to strike unintended notes. Look at that godawful alternative to "atheist" that some people came up with: "brights"? Aaargh. That was truly pukeworthy.
"...we're going to look forever, and no matter what we do, we're going to strike unintended notes." is as dogmatic a pronouncement as I have ever heard, one worthy of the Vatican. Heisenberg would urge caution here, I suspect.
Harris is slipshod as he does not (in my opinion) truly examine the floor of his own assumptions, but his attempt to sneak a peak into "rational mysticism" is rather interesting. It feels like when people of reason try to look at something irrational they are precluded from the normal avenues of inspection, i.e. the senses, because "there the eyes go not, nor the ears." Until "reason" can wrap its tendrils around the irrational in such a way as to include the illogical in its understanding of existence, it cannot enter "the sun door" but only blink and turn away.
btw: Jung suggested that "perfection cannot contain completion, but completion can contain perfection." To him, men tended towards "perfection" (the arrow) and women tended towards "completion" (the circle). The arrow cannot contain the circle, but the circle can contain all things, all concepts, all that is all. This idea, when extrapolated, can mean that as rationalists seek a perfection of understanding of the manifested universe they cannot find a mechanism (or viewpoint) that will contain all of its parts, whereas the somewhat "sloppier" POV--the POV of the circle, the circle that contains the coincidence of opposites, the rational and irrational--can and does.
You can't jump out of a box that doesn't exist. But she can.
+++ -
Hank Fox:
"The godders are already winning the battle over the popular-usage definition of 'theory.' Don't be the guy who helps them control the meaning of 'secular.' "
Far be it from me ever to give aid and comfort to the Philip Johnsons of the world! Just the opposite. (If you need an example of the contempt I hold these people in, go to google and enter inurl:tristero.blogspot.com "Creationism's Trojan Horse" which should point you to a review of Cross and Forrests excellent book. )
Unfortunately, the word began with them and that is the problem. Like it or not, the religious right were the ones who branded their opponents secularists, and these opponents accepted the label without quite getting what it meant historically. Like "pro-life" or "tax relief,"or "intelligent design" "secular" is something of a poison pill. Once you accept the terminology of the debate, you are arguing - literally! - on their terms. I think that is always a Very Bad Idea (tm).
It's not that the definition can't be flexible and change. Rather, I'm saying the effort to redefine it must be very conscious and very precise or else it will be confused with earlier meanings which are not what's meant by PZ Myers and others who use it to describe themselves.
Better yet, instead of having your enemies label you, I'd suggest some other term which doesn't have the baggage "secular" does. Other straegies can work, but you're fighting uphill. That is my only point.
BTW, I think the pushback on what "theory" means may be working better than you think. I've seen more and more non-scientist commentators distinguishing between the formal and colloquial definitions of the term. -
Hank Fox:
"The godders are already winning the battle over the popular-usage definition of 'theory.' Don't be the guy who helps them control the meaning of 'secular.' "
Far be it from me ever to give aid and comfort to the Philip Johnsons of the world! Just the opposite. (If you need an example of the contempt I hold these people in, go to google and enter inurl:tristero.blogspot.com "Creationism's Trojan Horse" which should point you to a review of Cross and Forrests excellent book. )
Unfortunately, the word began with them and that is the problem. Like it or not, the religious right were the ones who branded their opponents secularists, and these opponents accepted the label without quite getting what it meant historically. Like "pro-life" or "tax relief,"or "intelligent design" "secular" is something of a poison pill. Once you accept the terminology of the debate, you are arguing - literally! - on their terms. I think that is always a Very Bad Idea (tm).
It's not that the definition can't be flexible and change. Rather, I'm saying the effort to redefine it must be very conscious and very precise or else it will be confused with earlier meanings which are not what's meant by PZ Myers and others who use it to describe themselves.
Better yet, instead of having your enemies label you, I'd suggest some other term which doesn't have the baggage "secular" does. Other straegies can work, but you're fighting uphill. That is my only point.
BTW, I think the pushback on what "theory" means may be working better than you think. I've seen more and more non-scientist commentators distinguishing between the formal and colloquial definitions of the term.
Aureola
I don't know that that was the origin of the word. That is not clear, even from the Latin derivation. Got a reference?
Of course, more definitions can be added. That's how the word came to refer to priests who were out in the world, by adopting the Latin word, if I remember correctly. My point is, why use a word your enemies used to define you? Sure, you can do so, but you're arguing uphill. And you better make it very clear exactly how you are using that word. With "secular," there's too much baggage imho, to make it worthwhile. -
I don't like Sam Harris either. First of all, he subscribes to some Eastern Mysticism type beliefs that I find unscientific, and, AFAICT from my limited exposure to his writing, religious. Second he's an atheist of the blood-thirsty Christopher Hitchens neo-con variety, all too eager to align himself with Christian Fundamentalists and Jewish Fundamentalists in their
scatologicaleschatological Holy War against Islam (as if they are pawns in "his war" and not vice versa). Third, he is even an advocate of torture - as if Abu Ghraib didn't further expose the moral poverty of such a position.
So it would seem he is really neither Secular nor Humanist.#: Posted by Jason Malloy on 09/30 at 04:53 PM -
Maybe for Harris secularism is like the Tao . . . it does nothing, but through it all things are done.
Seriously: I think Harris and PZ and most of the sympathetic folks reading these posts have much more in common than not. Harris's point may be abstruse, even misguided, but really--is PZ seriously suggesting that Harris is slamming secularism? Is that warranted?#: Posted by on 09/30 at 05:22 PM -
Wow! I always understood the word 'secular' the way we understand it.
Until this thread I had no idea that the Religious Right understood it differently from us. Now, thanks to tristero, I see that we are (and we do this sooo often) and, as usual, we are totally unaware of it. Just see this thread - we have no idea what the term means in those circles. This is very important. This is the way they communicate with each other while BYPASSING our consciousness.
This is like mention of Dred Scott in the Prez debates last year. We thought it was a poorly chosen reference to an old Supreme Court case, until Paperwight jumped in an opened our eyes - it has a very specific, and highly emotionally charged meaning to the Religious fanatics of the AmTaliban. Bush was sneaking in a message - that he will appoint a Supreme Court judge who will overturn Roe - to his base constituency, while the whole coded exchange never hit our consciousness. We did not hear it because we had no idea what the coded language was, nor we even suspected that a coded language even existed.
This is like "climate change" mentioned above. Focus-group tested by Frank Luntz and chosen specifically to elicit emotions favored by the Administration, the term is so often used by scientists unaware of this dirty little fact, thus undermining their own testimony as they speak.
The same goes for "sound science", a term invented by tobacco industry to denote tobacco-industry-funded contrarian "science", produced in order to manufacture uncertainty about the harmfulness of cigarette smoking. The term has now been used by every lobby whose financial (or religious) interests are undermined by scientific information: global warming, mercury in fish, intelligent design creationism, WMDs in Iraq, etc. Utilizing the propensity of the media towards 'He said - She said' journalism, the manufacture of contrarian "data" instantly elevates the contrarian view to the same level as the broad scientific consensus.
In my mind, and I gather from the comments above in many of our minds, the word 'secular' has no other meaning than something akin to "irrespective of religion", as in "Turkey is a secular state", or "Shia areas are very Islamic, Sunni areas are a patchwork, and Kurdish areas are secular".
The poorly-chosen term "Bright" was a conscious effort to invent a new word BECAUSE every existing term (secular, humanist, atheist, agnostic, etc.) has the same baggage - it is a negative version of religiosity. It does not have its own positive meaning irrespective of religion. It is either "opposed to" and "lacking in" religion. I thought that "secular" was the positive word, but apparently it is not.
Terms like 'realist' or 'rationalist', of course, have their precise meanings in philosophy and although 99.999999999% of the population has no clue, the philosophers would object to elevation of these terms to their common usages. I have no problem using the common meaning of those terms as they are positive. The religious are the ones who have to deal with negatives: irrational, unreal (surreal!). -
Sam Harris' piece appears in this month's "Free Inquiry" magazine; the cover story consists of about 40 responses from scientists, philosophers, and various pundits to the question "Will secularism survive?" As might be expected from reading this thread, even among the selected experts the meaning of "secularism" goes all over the place. Many of the commentators even begin with variations of "well, that depends on how it is defined..."
From what I can tell, the most popular definition -- either explicit or implied -- is that which represents the political stance asserting that government should neither favor nor prohibit any particular view on religion, and that laws deal only with matters of this present world, thereby protecting the liberty and freedom of conscience of religious and non-religious alike.
When used in this sense, "secularism" is indeed defined against the opposite position of "religionism" or various forms of theocracy -- mixing government and god. However, deeply devout people can now also be "secularists." Many are -- because of their fundamental respect for religious choice, and their desire to keep it free from state entanglement.
Imo, defining secularism as a political position (and not a position on the truth or value of religion as such) makes the most sense. We need a term to express those who favor the separation of church and state, and this usage appears to be getting more and more common. It is in the interest of the Religious Right to blur the distinction between being against government/majority endorsement of religion and being an atheist. If they can convince the general public that one stance entails the other, they will win.#: Posted by on 09/30 at 07:30 PM -
The distinction that matters politically is between people who think that religious ideas should be optional and personal and those who insist they ought to be obligatory and enforced by formal or informal social sanctions. Lots of people in highly secular societies continue to believe in God. The content of their beliefs doesn't matter very much, however, so long as the belief remains a matter of individual choice, something more like having a hobby than belonging to a family.
#: Posted by Jim Harrison on 10/01 at 12:20 AM
-
He also sets up secularism as nothing but "perpetual opposition" to religion. That's complete nonsense, an unthinking acceptance of the definition used by the religious.
Si, as eef to say...
I, ¡El Gato Negro! am non-pregnant.
¿What? joo mean to say there are only 2 states of being, and non-pregnant, she ees the less-common one?
So, have-eeng no belief een los Dios, eet ees like being non-pregnant.
Because, as everyone knows, pregnancy, she ees the common state of all beings, no?
so.#: Posted by ¡El Gato Negro! on 10/01 at 01:24 AM -
It's as though we didn't have the handy word "health", and had to describe the ambulatory majority as "non-sick". In fact, among those infected with irrational beliefs it's a commonplace that those who don't share theirs must subscribe to something worse. It appears to be inconceivable that one might simply be free of such a malady.
From a marketing point of view, it's hard to come up with something better than "freethinker". It joins a strong positive adjective to a strong verb, and what's the alternative available to the credulous?#: Posted by on 10/01 at 02:34 AM -
Harris wrote that there is not much to secularism other than that it is all that stands between us and the end of civilization. Sounds tongue-in-cheek to me, along the lines of "other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?"
#: Posted by on 10/01 at 06:19 AM
-
"Secular" (Spanish seglar) comes from the Latin saeculum - generation, age. Tristero is right, it is an Ecclesiatical term, referring to non-religious issues, and later, to Church people who dealt with the worldly, material, monetary, political and non-spiritual affairs of the Church. The "Secular" (temporary) is meaningless without its counterpart the "Spiritual" (eternal). If we negate the existence of a "spiritual", "trascendental", "eternal", "divine" world (as I do), all that remains is the "secular", that is, the ordinary and natural universe we all know.
Recently I toured an old monastery in Ecuador and it had a separate entrance for "seglares", to avoid contaminating the purity of the monks.#: Posted by on 10/01 at 07:34 AM -
The quote you give is pretty good evidence that Harris is a dingbat. Negligible appeal to the culture at large sounds like a marketing concern. Or perhaps he is concerned about popularity? I don't think either criterion has much existential relevance to whether or not I should choose to live a secular life. In fact, I would have only contempt for someone whose choice of beliefs was determined in any significant way by perceptions of marketability and popularity. The very definition of inauthenticity.
Secularism, as Myers points out, is in fact a very active engagement with reality and nature that is for me an essential part of a satisfying life. Harris' definition is not worth taking seriously and has gone a long way toward convincing me that he is not worth taking seriously. It pisses me off that half-baked atheists like him capture so much public space. -
coturnix: realism has a well defined philosophical meaning? Heh. I used to avoid calling myself a realist because there are too many versions of realism so the word was uninformative.
Incidentally, the suggestion that we should avoid words with shades of meaning that poison the well runs into problems in the other direction. The churches and other prior sociocultural authorities are those who have made interesting words like Epicurean, materialist, skeptic (to some extent), naturalist, etc. have negative connotations. Even the "bright" didn't come free from bagge - it had the connotation of "intelligent" so, "nerdly" or whatever. Or by exclusion, "not-stupid" whence everyone else is "stupid".
I think the only solution is to be aware that people may have different "rhetorical halos" to them and when writing try to learn what they will be in advance, or when speaking to adjust to the audience. Difficult, but unavoidable it seems. It might also get us (in technical contexts, at any rate) more sensitive to doing some of the things I suggested once in a paper on word choice: being careful with stipulative definitions, ostension/referition, etc. (See my web site if you are interested.)#: Posted by Keith Douglas on 10/01 at 08:54 AM -
It's all true that the word "secular" has baggage, but as I've said, every word has baggage, unless you want to invent one out of whole cloth (and even then, it will rapidly acquire unintended baggage).
So what word should we use? - Don't know. Freethinker, rationalist, realist and naturalist sound better than alternatives, baggage and all.
-
From the Brights net:
ANTONYM POLL RESULTS ARE IN
Brights Central received serious pleas that, for pragmatic reasons, we should
have and use a term that is opposite to the noun "bright." Thus, Brights Central
initiated a mini-project to obtain an appropriate noun with which to identify
persons whose worldview does incorporate supernatural and/or mystical elements.
We would then use it to refer to "non-Brights" in communications and published
articles.
Almost 1,000 Brights voted in the poll for an appropriate antonym. Receiving 45%
of the total votes was -- supernaturalists, which garnered over four times the
second place etherians.
It looks like the phrase to use is: brights and supernaturalists. - Keith - you are right. It was clutzy writing - the definition pertained to Rationalist, not realist (which is a grab-bag of meanings).
-
The etymology of "secular" that Tristero cites may reflect Oxford University's history as a church institution - and some of its baggage is quite handy.
My cheap little Webster's on a CD sayeth:
[ME, fr. OF seculer, fr. LL saecularis, fr. saeculum the present world, fr. L, generation, age, century, world; akin to W hoedl lifetime] (14c)
- signifying literally that "secular" things are part of time .
Fine with me: let Jehovah & his ilk remain "outside of time", while those of us with our lives full of temporal things do what we have to do.
As for the baggage, I hope all of those who may read this in the US are carrying at least a little of it. Pull out your collection of dead presidents and scan the banner beneath that psychedelic Masonic pyramid on the back of a $1.
"Novus Ordo Seclorum" - usually rendered as "New World Order", perhaps more accurately "A New Order in the Ages" (i.e., history). However you want to define it, it was visibly part of the agenda of The Founding Fathers.
Asking your friendly neighborhood christocrat-wrapped-in-a-flag to correlate this with his or her rant against "secularism" should lead to either a hard pratfall or an entertaining dance, possibly a leap into hyperspace should they choose to explore that "Masonic" dimension.
(Pls use this gambit sparingly, or the Busheviks will find it necessary to redesign the dollar bill.)
Considered scientifically, time does not exist separately but as part of spacetime. That's a convenient boundary: secularists should have no difficulty with conceding the rest to all who claim it.#: Posted by on 10/01 at 08:37 PM
