On simplistic distinctions between science and faith

On simplistic distinctions between science and faith

[I originally posted this on Facebook on May 10, 1014.]

As a human being who tries to remain aware and sensitive, as a student of psychology and a counselor, and as someone who in some contexts could aptly be termed a "religious" person, I observe that conceptually dividing the world into two categories, the religious and the irreligious, or people of faith versus people of science, and then proceeding to label one as the cause of progress and good, and the other as the source of the world's evils, is inadequate to the complexity of the universe we inhabit.

First of all, the terms themselves are oversimplifications. Those who claim to be strict materialists or strictly scientific nonetheless have aspects of their vision of reality that are driven by trust in things or ideas they have not (at least yet) been able to prove. And religious people are not devoid of reliance on evidence and their senses. The balance of reality for everybody I know includes things that are treated as truth because evidence is there to support them, things treated as truth because it is anticipated that evidence will be forthcoming, and things treated as truth because they seem fundamental to who and what we are—which is taken as being evidence enough, even if it is not sufficient to convince someone else who claims to have a fundamentally different experience of reality. In other words, in every person I have met, reliance on evidence and reliance on faith exists in a complex interrelationship and on a spectrum, rather than as a pure binary alternative.

Whether we describe ourselves as people of faith or adherents to science, the bulk of what we know we know without knowing how we know it. This is confirmed by neuroscience’s observations regarding the implicit, tacit nature of most of our knowledge, and also confirmed by philosophical and ancient religious statements about the relationship of belief and evidence in the act of knowledge. Science is a specific mode of thought that seeks, in a disciplined and consistent way, to test and articulate explanations that pertain to particular swaths of this knowledge, sometimes leading to radical revisions of our former picture of reality. None of us, though, refrain from living until all elements of our reality have been proven. Many things we feel certain of could indeed be revised in light of further testing—from the chair that looks stable (yet breaks when I sit on it), to the black holes that seem to obliterate everything (yet actually retain, in scrambled form, the information they devour)—but we are often content to let life itself be the means by which we determine these things, willing to risk a potentially failed experiment for the sake of the freedom of the relatively spontaneous life that this makes possible for us.

Secondly, though, to the extent one may nonetheless succeed in cleanly categorizing people into two clear groups, religious and non-religious, it is an oversimplification and incorrect to attribute goodness and progress to one side and evils to the other. The scientific impulse has been steered in directions that have resulted in good things, but also been employed towards things that are morally problematic or reprehensible. The same can be said of the religious impulse. Each impulse, in its own unique way, has contributed to progress at times and retrogression at others. For example, Gandhi, Mother Theresa, and Martin Luther King, Jr. demonstrate qualities, generally lauded for facilitating progress, which can be said to grow from their perspectives of faith, and Newton, Copernicus, Madame Curie, and Jonas Salk relied on materialist hypotheses to learn things that help us navigate natural phenomena in beneficial ways. On the other hand, the Inquisition and a variety of fundamentalist campaigns represent negative expressions of the religious impulse, while Joseph Stalin represents the evil potential of one who claims to represent a purely rational and materialistic approach. At the same time, it would be an oversimplification to say that Stalin's atheism caused his moral destructiveness, just as it would be an oversimplification to say that everyone who believes in a God demonstrates moral superiority. There are plenty who identify themselves as atheists who are exemplary in character and behavior, and plenty who identify as believers who are reprehensible.

Along with pointing towards how goodness and evil defy simple allocation to religious or scientific perspectives, the above examples also further illustrate how hard it is to find unmixed instances of these impulses in real people: I cannot say that Gandhi never relied on evidence any more than I can say that Stalin was not driven by a passion that seems to evince a kind of faith. Indeed, not everyone who claims faith declares war on science, anyway—and vice versa. Placing the two in absolute opposition to each other seems to be only the project of zealots on both sides. In addition, the variety of ways in which people define terms such as "God" and talk about things that are of "ultimate concern" to them, and the variety of ways in which people understand what it means to believe or not believe, adds exponentially to the complexity I have already described.

My point in this is that the simple (to the point of simplistic) way of dividing people and reality fails to account for the complexity of our actual experience. Moreover, it does not give us a compelling platform to discuss what drives us forward as people and as a species and what sets us back. To be flexible enough to do justice to this task requires us to be able to speak of healthy and unhealthy expressions of the faith/religious impulse, and healthy and unhealthy expressions of the scientific impulse—and then, further, to insist on the right to continue the debate about what constitutes health and non-health. Only then can I deal adequately with the fact that each side has unique potentials and unique shadows. Increasingly, anything less than this kind of flexibility results in statements that fall flat on listeners' ears, because they simply don’t ring true, and because they are perceived (correctly, I believe) as hiding unconscious assumptions. In other words, the simple version of reality seems out of touch with the most significant findings of both faith and science alike.

Extended thoughts in response to recent shootings

Extended thoughts in response to recent shootings

Debates about gun violence, as with many other public debates, present causes, factors and influences in the form of false dichotomies: "Either it's this, or it's this." In reality, it is "both – and." Actually, it's even more like "both – and – and – and..". Not only is this inclusive approach more in line with reality; it also allows us to look at multiple points of possible intervention, which is the only thing that can lend us a sense of hope, anyway.

For example, a few days ago, a young man walked into my alma mater, Seattle Pacific University, killed a student with a gun and injured others. A way to think about this is by asking the question: "What are all of the factors, individually and cumulatively, that contributed to the tipping of scales in the direction of this man desiring, choosing, and being able to carry out this act?" The factors we might consider can include literally everything, from family conditions into which he was born, to major events during development of his identity and the formation of the deep emotional templates that shape his capacity for attachment and relationship, to interactions with teachers and peers, to what coping strategies were available to him during stress, and which direction his fantasies took when he wanted to escape. 

We can look at events closer to the incident itself, such as how the plan was born in his thinking, what transpired on the day it was carried out, and, yes, at what point and how he came into possession of the gun. We can then imagine--realistically--that even one variation (but likely more) in this mix of ingredients might have shifted his reality just enough in another direction, so that he either 1) would not have come up with this idea, 2) would not have thought it desirable, 3) would not have chosen to act on it, 4) would not have been able to carry it out--or, more likely, 5) some combination of the preceding would have altered his internal or situational landscape in such a way that he would end up amongst the 99.999 percent of people who never do such a thing. 

From here, we can wonder what form some of these meaningful variations might have assumed. If, for example, he had been taken under the wing of a caring mentor when he was in fourth grade, had been involved in particular community youth activities, had had clear access to counseling at critical moments, had two or three friends who were intimate enough to ask him slightly awkward questions about what he was thinking or feeling, or had been smiled at by a stranger as he waited at a stoplight on that morning (or a combination of the above, or of countless other possible variations), might it have been just enough to shift the balance in a critical way? It is not inconceivable.

If you could co-author details of his developmental history, what elements would you tweak to make it more likely that things would cascade towards a positive outlook and outcome for this young man? What programs would you want to see funded and available to him? What laws would you want to implement, in order to shape a cultural landscape more capable of nurturing his development towards being empathetic, reflective, and able to tolerate feelings of discomfort without acting out aggressively? What safeguards and restrictions would you want in place if, despite these efforts, he was still intent on inflicting harm? There could be a million points of possible intervention to consider. These considerations could then guide us towards understanding the significance of the private and public attitudes, actions, messages, and policies we are communicating and living out at each moment--through which we slowly shape a culture that, in turn, is slowly and decisively shaping us. 

This is the kind of cultural conversation we need to have. It is not altogether likely we will have it, though, because to do so requires we become aware and acknowledge that potentially any and all things we do--down to the details of what seem to us to be trivial interactions--matter.

Some thoughts about moral struggle

Some thoughts about moral struggle

I find myself believing that our most important human skill, at this moment in history, is our ability to wrestle, through language, with questions of meaning and direction. This gives us the greatest likelihood of arriving at consensus. And, even if disagreements remain, and it is necessary to solve them by means of a vote, our decisions can be based on information that comes from putting our best words and thoughts to the test. 

Some of my heroes in this endeavor are the champions of civil rights, in the 60s, who demonstrated the power of moral strength to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. One of their virtues, it seems to me, was their ability to distinguish between merely physical and moral struggles, and to insist on the possibility of pursuing their goals through moral persuasion, rather than merely physical strength.

To sharpen my awareness of what this might mean in our present society, with its various heated debates, I have put together the following observations about what differentiates a moral struggle from a merely physical one. I have decided to look at this by asking the question, "What constitutes failure in a merely physical struggle, and what are some things that constitute failure in a moral one?"

How to fail in a merely physical struggle:

1) Succumb to the strength of your opponent, as a result of your own lack of strength, willingness, or ability to continue the fight.

How to fail in a moral struggle. (This is a situation in which you believe you have a right perspective that is being resisted or not acknowledged by an opponent. Any one of the following can constitute defeat, to one degree or another.):

1) Treating your opponent with less respect than you would expect for yourself.

2) Relying on fallacious reasoning or erroneous facts, and not being open to correction of these when they are made apparent.

3) Being unwilling to commend your opponent or their position where it is, in fact, commendable.

4) Treating your opponent as though they are incapable of reasonable conversation or of learning.

5) Attacking your opponent with an aim other than that of advancing the discussion.

6) Pretending to care about the original argument while actually caring about guarding the appearance of one's own strength. Caring more about "being right" than in getting closer to what is true and helpful.

7) Not leaving ways in which your opponent might "save face," when it is possible to do so without forsaking the aims of the argument.

8) Distracting your opponent by charging them with things they have no possibility of changing.

9) Failing to acknowledge difficulties that may be involved in the changes you are asking your opponent to make; not scrutinizing one's self to appreciate how, if you were in your opponent's shoes, you might also be reluctant to change.

10) Failing to realize that change, for your opponent, might be more difficult than just "changing one's mind," in light of "proof." Whatever their beliefs, they are part of a network of ideas that make sense out of the universe in which they live. However inadequate one's beliefs may ultimately prove to be, they may nonetheless be the glue of their personal, family and cultural identity (or, just as significant, an expression of a heroic attempt to break free of those ties). Beliefs can not just be abandoned or changed without assurance that something equally stabilizing will be there to replace them, or that one can tolerate the discomfort introduced by new uncertainty. Beliefs are rarely just a response to "facts"; they are elements of deeper meaning and orientation. To not recognize this is to treat your opponent more like a machine than a human being.

11) Mistaking a moral struggle for a merely physical one: "Might makes right."

12) (Perhaps the most important...) losing courage and confidence in the possibility of attaining one's end through moral struggle, and so reverting to the rules for a merely physical one. While this may at times be inevitable, it remains lamentable from the standpoint of a moral struggle.