The Limits of Secularism

January/February 2012

Nevertheless, I have tried in my book to quote only atheists and agnostics in my defence. My arguments are based on atheists like Nietzsche, agnostics like Wittgenstein and so on. And at the very beginning of the book I quote three thinkers whom we do not normally think of as religious people: Einstein, Freud and Wittgenstein, all of whom nevertheless say that the meaning of life is identical to the question of religion. Here are the direct quotes:

Albert Einstein: "To know and to answer the question, ‘What is the meaning of human life?' is to be religious."

Freud: "The idea of life having a purpose stands and falls with the religious system."

Wittgenstein: "To believe in God is to see that life has a meaning."

Then I quote Tom Stoppard, who said, "When we have found all the mysteries and lost all the meaning we will be alone on an empty shore." I do not think we are alone because we have not lost the meaning.

It works the other way, too: if faith can respect science, so science can respect faith. Richard Dawkins says the following: "I think a case can be made that faith, the principled vice of any religion, is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus, but harder to eradicate. Faith is a great cop-out." However, Max Planck, the Noble Prize-winning physicist and founder of quantum theory, says, "Anyone who has seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realises that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words, ‘Ye must have faith'." It is a quality with which the scientist cannot dispense.

Einstein says something similar: "But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration towards truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion, to this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations, valid for the world of existence, are rational — that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith." He went on to make the famous utterance: "The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

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Anonymous

January 2nd, 2012
9:01 PM

Whether you are a believer or not,f science now knows that a moral sense in fact is inbred that enables one to distinguish between right and wrong. Thus while it good to believe a moral sense comes from religion it is also good to know that you do not have to be or have been a believer to know right from wrong. So go forth and sin no more

Anonymous

January 2nd, 2012
6:01 PM

Well it was NOT Judaism that the Chinese scholar referred to, but Christianity. The Good Rabbi conveniently omits this fact. And there's nothing shocking about this 'discovery.' Nietzsche attributed our doubt, and our atheism to our Christian 'conscience.' But had we not left our 'faith' with Machiavelli and Hobbes, we would still be mired in medieval superstition. And let's not forget that Catholic dogma did not prevent the Holocaust, the 'pacifying of the heathens' and the recent spate of child molestations within the Church.

Roger Wilco

January 2nd, 2012
4:01 PM

We are "damn, dirty apes" (with profound apologies to Charlton Heston). We are here to shovel money at our betters and be grateful for the privilege. We are to live as we are told to live.

Joel

January 2nd, 2012
4:01 PM

The one subject missing from the Rabbi's article (at least up to halfway through, where I tired of the self-serving twisting of facts), is truth. I'm not surprised. Apparently, now that we all need Religion--never mind which of those 5000 contradicting ones practiced today, any will do--it's to be marketed for its usefulness, not its truth anymore. If Christianity or Zorastrianiasm or Voodoo brings families together, we should have faith.

Mike

January 2nd, 2012
2:01 PM

The whole pop-science left/right-brain thing that invades this piece doesn't leave me with a good impression that he knows much about science. People being brought together to worship doesn't imply that they're going to do good. I've witnessed plenty of examples of congregants being perfectly horrible to people who won't take a dose of worship with the charity they're receiving. For an extreme example look at the manifestly man-made ruling "gods" of North Korea. I don't know where he gets his figures on religiosity as a correlate of community involvement: in all the efforts I've been involved in there's been very little of it evident. Maybe he means involvement in "religious" community endeavours? What special precedence does religion has over say philosophy in dealing with issues of human existence? "So there it is: the evidence that intellectuals have systematically misunderstood the nature of religion and religious observance". Sorry, did I miss something?

Phil

December 27th, 2011
4:12 AM

Shane, I see that you disagree with that particular statement of Rabbi Sacks, but your disagreement doesn't seem all that strong. After all, you write that PERHAPS faith is incidental to positive social and moral effects associated with church attendance.

Lawrence Gage

December 26th, 2011
11:12 PM

Perhaps, Shane. But modern secularism tends to teach that man is self-sufficient--not only collectively sufficient without God, but also individually sufficient without others (the two are connected). It's hard to know why people who believe themselves self-sufficient individuals would seek community in any meaningful way, by which I mean in a way that provides any objective, lasting foundation for self-sacrifice. On the other hand, perhaps you can come up with a way for people to rest content in sacrificing their here-and-now desires and interests (a requirement for real community) without any promise of future reward. In the centuries of modernity up until now, no one has succeeded, but you could always be the first. I wish you luck! LG http://realphysics.blogspot.com

Anthony S. Layne

December 26th, 2011
4:12 PM

The problem with "reestablishing [social] networks in such a way as to bring in those who find their meaning without religious faith" is that individualism is a heavily-repeated motif in what I've read from New Atheists. In fact, I find that many speak dismissively of believers as engaging in a sort of herd mentality; their own refusal of religion is their statement not only of intellectual superiority but of intellectual and social independence. Others aren't so uncharitable, but they also don't seem to seek out community with other atheists; in fact, their friends tend to be believers. Certainly, you see groups forming to advance atheism as a cause, but not as — you'll pardon the expression — religious expression.

elixelx

December 25th, 2011
7:12 AM

I am surprised that the Chief Rabbi did not include, yet, the most cogent and apropos expression of the relationship between Science and Religion: the unanimous agreement by the Children of Israel upon hearing the voice of G0D giving them the Torah... "We will DO", they cried with a single heart, mind and voice, "and we will BELIEVE" Consider that: in the presence of Divinity the Israelites made their acceptance of Religion concomitant upon their Experience; they said that a priori was a result of a posteriori; that Good and Useful Science was the bedrock of Strong and Unshakeable Faith... This is why the atheist lies when he maintains that believers are anti-rational. At Matan Torah those who have always excelled at Science, JEWS, got the priority right. FIRST DO, and THEN BELIEVE!

Shane

December 21st, 2011
2:12 PM

Interesting read. I disagree with what seems to be the central point that "individuals may live good lives without religion — the moral sense is part of what makes us human — but a society never can". The church brought people physically together through shared belief (or through social convention or habit maybe) and the loss of this is evident in many ways but perhaps faith is incidental to positive social and moral effects associated with church attendance. The religions have long established social networks and institutions that these foster positive effects by bring people together, hopefully over time we can reestablish these networks in such a way as to bring in those who find their meaning without religious faith.

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