Dennis Prager: If There Is No God, Introduction

One of the projects I’ve been meaning to work on is to post some comments on Dennis Prager’s article called “If There Is No God,” which he published last summer on townhall.com. (Note 1.)  In general, I do not consider the point-by-point rebuttal of religious claims to be a particularly fruitful method of combating mysticism, but every now and then the exercise may be a good vehicle to reach honest minds.  I’ve found Mr. Prager to be more thoughtful and philosophical than the typical religious conservative, and in his brief article he manages to squeeze in many ideas that I believe represent mainstream religious thought.  Judging by the level of his discourse, he seems to treat his opponents respectfully, so I think he deserves the same.

My main goal here is to dash the notion that there are only two choices in the realm of morality: either to be religious or to reject morality outright.  I sympathize somewhat with the people who fly to religion in order to escape the ruinous subjectivism of modern intellectuals.  The so-called “liberals” - the cultural and political “left” - sneer at the notion of a “black and white” world, regard the acceptance of absolutes as “naive” and lacking "nuance," and consider good and evil to be mere social conventions.  The dominance of these ideas accounts for much of the deterioration in the western world today.

However, the fact that the subjectivists are wrong does not absolve the religionists from their own errors. 

It is vital to identify our nature as human beings, and to recognize that as thinking, free-willed individuals, morality is literally a matter of life and death.  To affix the validity of morality upon a supernatural God - to cast an anchor into fog, to tie one’s lifeline to a ghost - is to commit a grievous error as bad as or worse than that of the subjectivists.  I understand the desire to defend ethics, but if the religious are hoping to place morality beyond the reach of attack by basing it on God, they end up achieving just the opposite; they lay bare the bankruptcy of their arguments.  

As bad as the assault on values by the intellectual left is in America today, I think morality is far more threatened by religious conservatives.  The subjectivists attack; religionists betray.  An enemy who is an avowed antagonist is usually less dangerous than an enemy who claims to be an ally.  And to make matters worse, the religionists hold a near monopoly in the realm of values; morals and religion are practically synonymous.

If America and the West is to be saved, we must rescue morality from religion.

The choice to either accept religion or reject morality altogether is a false dichotomy.  Neither is correct.  (In fact, the two viewpoints have more in common with each other than subjectivists or religionists would probably care to admit, a point that I’ll make in Part 1 of this series.)  To have these two moral viewpoints as the only dominant choices in the world is a disaster.  The one dismisses morality altogether; the other recognizes morality, but derives it from a fairy tale.

In Mr. Prager’s essay, he enumerates fourteen consequences of there being no God.  My plan is to comment on each of these in turn in the coming weeks.  (At the rate I’ve been writing lately, those weeks will likely turn into months, unfortunately.)  In the broadest sense, the same answer applies to most of Prager’s points; namely, Prager’s assertions are arbitrary and may be dismissed accordingly without further consideration.  However, this simple rejection is not likely to be convincing or helpful to a religious person who is honestly trying to come to conclusions that are consonant with reality.  I am convinced that some religious people hold religion rather loosely - only as a matter of habit, or as I indicated above, perhaps because they are revolted by modern “liberalism.”  It is for them that I submit these ideas.  Perhaps some will see that religion does not provide the unassailable foundation that they thought it did.  But happily, an objective view of reality does provide a means – the only means – of comprehending the universe, and it also provides a framework for objectively-derived values.

(Note: The next installment in the series may be found here.)

NOTES

1.  Dennis Prager, “If There Is No God,” http://townhall.com/columnists/DennisPrager/2008/08/19/if_there_is_no_god

It’s Not About Her

In reading LB’s essay Why I am an Objectivist, with which I wholly agree, some of my own reflections came to the fore, especially concerning the introduction of reason, selfishness, and individual rights to people who are not familiar with Ayn Rand’s works.  

In an important sense, Objectivism - the body of ideas - has nothing to do with Ayn Rand.  Don’t misunderstand me: the philosophical achievements are entirely hers, and Miss Rand deserves literally all the credit for Objectivism.  She single-handedly integrated and formulated every major and minor tenet of the philosophy; the sheer scope of her achievement is almost too staggering to believe could be accomplished by one person. 

Nevertheless, in terms of Objectivism’s content and its application to the real world, I think it is important to focus on the philosophy, not the the philosopher.  I care not a whit about the genesis of the philosophy.  Its truth would not change had it been articulated and refined by dozens of great men over the course of the last two thousand or so years, or (as it turned out to be) formulated by a single twentieth-century novelist.  The important thing is that the tenets of the philosophy hold true to reality, comprehensively and systematically - which is exactly what Objectivism does.

From the perspective of evaluating and applying Ayn Rand’s ideas, I invoke this popular expression: “it’s not about her.”  

Incidentally, I do not know but would guess that this must be the reason Miss Rand chose to call her philosophy “Objectivism” as opposed to say, “Randism.”  She had every reason to be immensely proud of her achievements, but she did not label her philosophy as Hank Rearden labeled Rearden Metal.  To call it Objectivism not only emphasizes its distinction from subjectivism and intrisicism, but reinforces its generality as a complete, reality-based philosophical system.  Ayn Rand was not an inventor; she was a discoverer.  As a novelist she created, but as a philosopher she identified.

I bring this point up because a few too many times I have seen the word “cult” associated with Ayn Rand, as if she were some sort of religious figure with a following of obedient disciples.  This is an absurd smear, and it is not without a certain irony - for if there is one characteristic that is sure to be found in every individual who truly grasps Miss Rand’s ideas, it would be a selfish independence of mind that makes such “cultish” following impossible.  

With this in mind, I would not wish to grant my intellectual foes a favor by contributing, however inadvertently, to the idea that Objectivists are followers of a “gospel according to Rand.”  When I argue points with friends and colleagues, I do not frame my statements in the form, “Well, Ayn Rand said...” or, “As an Objectivist, I believe that...”   Why should this convince anybody?  Listeners (or readers) who disagree with Ayn Rand to begin with will not be convinced by merely repeating her position on matters, and those who are unfamiliar with her work should not take her - or anyone else’s - word for it.  Anyone who is worth arguing with should care only about facts and their connections to principles.  Mentioning Ayn Rand every few sentences would do more harm than good.

An even more fundamental reason that I don’t speak or write that way is that I don’t think that way.  I simply don’t go around wondering, “What would Ayn Rand do?”  It’s perfectly true that when I read The Fountainhead twenty-five years ago, it changed my life.  I’ve read and re-read her fiction and non-fiction many times, and without question Miss Rand is my supreme intellectual hero.  But when I’m puzzling over something, I do not mine her works for the answer.  I look to reality for the answer.

As did she.

Blog, Interrupted

I think I have (or had) a few regular readers, and to them I apologize for my abrupt hiatus of the last few weeks.  I have been completely consumed by work, trying to meet some deadlines for the product I am working on.  I've spent not only all my time but all my mental energy on the circuit design and firmware for which I am responsible.  I've neglected myself, my family, and alas, my blog.

If there is a silver lining to this interruption in writing, it has provided me with a brief break from discouraging current affairs - in particular, the election and the federal takeover of private enterprises.  But I'll soon turn my attention to these things again.  Stay tuned, if you are so inclined!

Grim Prospects For Liberty

It’s done.  On Friday, President Bush signed into law the $700 billion “economic bailout” bill that Senators and Representatives bickered over last week but ultimately passed.

Personally, I am extremely discouraged with the prospects for liberty in this country, more so than in any time in my life, I think.  There must have been worse times, when Americans’ freedoms were more in jeopardy than now, but the New Deal years were before my time, and I was too young to remember Johnson’s Great Society programs and Nixon’s price controls.  This year had already been bad enough with the woeful selection of presidential candidates, featuring two men who each in his own way have an utter contempt for individual rights.  (I found myself actually hoping Hillary Clinton would become the Democratic candidate so that I could vote against the religion-infested Republicans.  With Obama as the nominee, I will not vote for any presidential candidates in November.)  But this heavy-handed and accelerating intrusion of the federal government in the economy, starting with the Federal Reserve’s “emergency loan” to Bear Stearns and culminating in the outrageous $700 billion giveaway (or more accurately, takeaway), has put it over the top.

I was going to use this post to say that we had finally plunged headlong in tyranny, but on second thought, that is not an apt characterization.  This is tyranny all right - the soft, relentless oppression of the paternalistic state - but it’s hard to characterize it as a plunge.  We did not just move from a state of freedom to one of subservience.  If we had, surely there would have been more protest.  No, we have been serfs for some time now.

How did we get here?  How can there be a nearly universal sense that it is the free market that has failed, that “deregulation” has not worked, that more oversight is needed to contain “greedy” Wall Street executives that care only about fleecing the poor and middle class?  How can most Americans not only leave the federal government blameless for the crisis, but think it is a good idea for the government to seize almost a trillion dollars that American citizens have earned, then concentrate the dictatorial power to determine the value of “toxic” mortgages and assets into the hands of a few federal bureaucrats who have no financial interest in the outcome?

It can only be by imperceptible degrees.  Americans by nature do not roll over when attacked from the front.  Freedom cannot be taken from us... but it can be handed over willingly to con men.  There was a time when Americans stood on their own two feet and would have been appalled at the thought of enlisting the government for help.  But apparently, desperation can soften up a population, and men will discard their principles for a loaf of bread.  I’m sure that some shame was felt at first - a little during the “trust-busting” days of the turn of the 20th century, and more so in the bread lines of the Great Depression years - but nowhere now do I see any shame at all.  It is now taken as a given that it is the governments’ job to regulate, restrict, prohibit, and prescribe.  Absurdly, bureaucrats whose interests lie in consolidating power are propped up as the safeguards of prosperity, while businessmen whose livelihoods depend upon pleasing customers are painted as the enemy.

The American spirit has not broken; it has withered.  We bleed not from a few mortal wounds, but from countless small cuts - the “cuts” being ideas, of course - over more than a century.  We are slain not with swords but with pins.  It is death by a thousand pricks.  

And since the “bailout” bill is fresh in my mind and the villains this week are the Senators and Representatives of the United States, I am tempted to call it death by 535 pricks.  If the phrase has a coarse secondary meaning, I make no apology for it.