Posted by Siamang on: 08.13.2007 /
Whenever I want to read a really thoughtful post about atheism, I venture over to Ebonmuse’s Daylight Atheism.
Here’s a great post from a couple of days ago.
There’s a tendency that I’ve noticed is very common in fundamentalist religious groups, as well as in certain (mostly authoritarian) political movements. That tendency is what I call the “one-reason worldview”: the belief that a single grand, overarching cause explains and underlies literally everything.
Ebonmuse takes a very simple observation. Something I think many of us notice, but maybe didn’t consciously make the connection. People like George Bush who seems to believe that the simple “good vs evil” idea explains global political struggles. Or people like D. James Kennedy who believes that the teaching of the theory of evolution has led to teen pregnancy, drug abuse, abortion, rape, genocide, etc.
Conspiracy theorists are expert in this one-reason worldview. They simply cannot look at the historical events of history and deal with them without seeing one root cause (a global cabal of bankers in league with space-aliens?).
They cannot handle, or don’t want to, the idea that the world is made up of many, many different unallied political, social and natural power-bases.
Anyway, bookmark Daylight Atheism. Always good stuff there.
-Siamang
Image courtesy Answers in Genesis.
Comment by: Mike O
1I’m not sure I get your point. I’m looking at this from a spiritual perspective, but is there something inherently wrong or foolish with believing that there really is an over-arching “plot” to life on earth?
I think I agree with you that we (the conservatives) tend to want to simplify things too much. But is it so wrong to think there may be one grand plot to everything?
I read a good book by John Eldridge called “Epic.” You’ve probably heard of him … he’s the author of “Wild at Heart” which is quite popular in the Christian community. Anyway, his premise is that when people think of themselves as “the star of the movie” (MY life is about ME), it’s a small, perhaps selfish perspective. But when people realize that they are really a bit-player in a larger epic (MY life is a small part of something BIGGER THAN ME), the minor ups and downs, successes and failures that we all go through, seem less important, and easier to endure, in the grand scheme of things.
To me, that’s a perfectly reasonable perspective. But maybe it’s the difference in believing in a spiritual realm versus not believing in one. If there was no spiritual realm, I think I would agree with you that there is no “one reason” for things.
Comment by: Siamang
2Is real life really like that, though?
“Why did the stock-market plummet last week?”
“God.”
“Why did my girlfriend get pregnant?”
“God.”
I do think there is something inherantly foolish in believing that there is an overarching plot to life on earth. It causes people to believe that there are no threats to human survival.
If there is folly in believing that the individual self is the center of the world, then there’s much, much greater danger in believing that humanity enjoys a protected status on this planet.
We are very likely to nuke ourselves into nonexistence, playing that way.
Comment by: Mike O
3Why? I mean if, when it all comes down, you’re right, then yes, it will turn out that it was great folly for me to believe as I did. But if I’m right, then the folly will lie with those who couldn’t see it.
Believing there is no grand scheme if there really is one is no less a folly than believing there was one when there wasn’t. Did that make sense?
I guess what I’m saying is, we don’t know if there’s a grand scheme or not.
Comment by: Siamang
4Nope. Because if you’re right, and there is a grand scheme, then there’s nothing we could do about it to begin with. God won’t let us nuke ourselves, if it’s not His scheme. And if it is, then we can’t stop it anyway.
However, if there is no grand scheme, and yet we believe there is, we run the danger of assuming the world is on autopilot while we walk away from the controls.
Comment by: Laura M.
5Hear, hear, Siamang!
Straight to the point.
Comment by: Julie Marie
6you did it again, Siamang. Managed to distill the main point of all the books I’ve been slogging through (actually, slogging is a bit melodramatic, I’ve been enjoying my reads) into 5 sentances. Master of the “less is more” you are. :)
Comment by: Mike O
7But you’re WAY oversimplifying it (which, interestingly is sort of the point of this post, I think - a one-reason worldview.)
It’s not an all-or-nothing deal. You paint God as either manipulating every detail or controling no details at all, but that’s not even close to reasonable.
God has created an environment in which we can live. there are certain parameters in place, but within those parameters, we are free to do as we like. In fact, even outside those parameters, we’re free to do as we like, but the parameters dictate whether or not things are going “as they should,” whatever that means.
For example, you have a daughter, right? Do you micromanage every aspect of her life? Do you manipulate every input that she experiences? Of course not. But neither do you leave her to meander randomly through the streets, hopefully being lucky enough to make it to adulthood and reproduce. While you don’t manipulate every detail she encounters, there is still this overarching “environment” that she lives in in your home. She can either live in a way that mommy and daddy designed for her, or she doesn’t. She can either follow your rules (things will generally go well for her if she does this, right?) or she can choose not to (things will tend to not go well for her). It’s up to her. And even the responses she evokes from you aren’t necessarily all pleasing if she’s good, or displeasing if she’s bad. She can make a thousand independant decisions a day, none of which you control. You can only govern the outcomes of those decisions. And that’s how I think it is with God.
I do think there’s some level of “cause and effect” in place. But not at the charicature-ized level you imagine. I also think there are things/events/etc. that are pre-ordained, again not at the charicature-ized level you imagine. I don’t think it’s either-or, I think it’s both. It’s not a “one-reason worldview” (to borrow from your title).
I think the disconnect we’re having is that we’re talking about a spiritual thing here, which I believe exists and you don’t. It makes sense to me why you see things the way you do. A godless worldview dictates it. A spiritual worldview dictates something different.
Comment by: Siamang
8Yes, I agree. That’s what I said from the top, I don’t think you believe that God controls everything or is the sole reason for everything (though I will grant you believe He is the First Cause of everything.)
I think this conversation has sort of drifted, and you are forgetting I’m against that simplification, when in fact I’ve been arguing AGAINST that simplification.
I think either you misunderstand me or I failed to be clear about that.
I AM writing a charicature…. “God controls all” IS a problem. It’s what I’m complaining about, the one-reason-worldview.
You talk about a guiding hand in God, but also other forces at work. I agree, that’s a more reasonable look at the world. I’m saying that’s not a “one reason worldview”.
But my other point about walking away from the controls while thinking we’re on autopilot not only works at the extremes, it works on a sliding-scale as well.
Any small-picture lesser aspect of life ALSO bears a risk that if we walk away expecting autopilot, bad things can happen.
Be it the environment (people used to believe that God would not let any of His animal species go extinct, so they hunted with abandon.)
Be it medical problems (folks giving up on dialysis expecting that they were healed by their faith in God over dialysis).
Be it mental illness (rather than comitting him to a facility where he could get treatment and protection, Virginia Tech murderer Seung-Hui Cho’s parents sought a religious cure for their son’s mental illness. Pastors told the parents his “problem needed to be solved by spiritual power … “that’s why she came to our church — because we were helping several people like him.” )
There is a danger in assuming that you’re part of an overarching plot, because we have been conditioned by Hollywood, by television, by fiction that plots generally turn out okay at the end, and the protagonist almost always wins.
That’s wrong. It’s dangerous. It’s self-serving, and ego-gratifying. It’s also very seductive.
Comment by: Mike O
9THis was the comment that steered me wrong …
I assumed you were applying it to Christians in general (as well as comments that followed).
If you’re talking about “one reason” thinking, I agree. If you’re talking about “belief in God,” (the ‘lesser scale’ you referred to?), I can’t agree.
I will grant you, however, that abdicating things to “the will of God” can be self-serving and seductive. I don’t dispute the inherant error that people like me will make. But it doesn’t follow that he’s not there … only that we get it wrong sometimes.
But as you pointed out, I’m not talking about