Introduction to my book

Here is the introduction. My working title is 'The Coalescence of Being'. I am going to be finishing another two chapter over the teaching break, but I probably won't post them. I will post other stuff though.

Atheism remains on the march globally, and especially in the West. Yet something appears to be lacking in its platform. Religion, including fundamentalist religion, is seeing a revival globally, even in the most educated, affluent and mild societies. Religious groups maintain a strong political position, and it could even be argued that the ‘Bible belt’ holds more sway over American politics than ever before. As Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Michel Onfray, Stephen Fry and other popular atheists grow in influence their appears to be an almost commensurate increase in the influence of religion.

Why is this? As Dawkins and Hitchens so repeatedly point out, science gives us much better answers to the questions religion historically answers. We know of the origins of the universe, the origins of man, why we suffer from disease, why droughts happen, why floods happen etc. Why do people still turn to religion when it is so obvious that huge chunks of the original texts—I am speaking here of the Bible, the Torah and the Koran, among others—are clearly so much hogwash.

The answer, it seems to me, is that science, despite all its amazing insights into the question of world, has yet to provide compelling, practical insights into the questions of being, or meaning—the questions of life:

Who am I? (The question of identity)

What should I do? (The question of purpose and/or meaning)

What is right? (The ethical question)

Together, these four question amount to what is often referred to as ‘the meaning of life’ in common parlance. Certainly science has provided superb answers to the question of world (i.e. ‘where am I?’), and inroads have been made on the ethical question by rational ethical philosophy. Perhaps in the future the various psycho-disciplines will grant us a rich response to the first and second questions as well, but at present we have only limited answers to the question of identity and the question of purpose. A great many people remain unsure of what to do with their lives and what sort of person they should be. In regard to the ethical question, there remain problems pertaining to the origin of ethical principles and what gives them authority. That is to say, there are still significant gaps in the intrinsic logic and subjective experience of much ethical philosophy when it comes to explaining what makes principles ‘binding’. A rational argument is one thing, but an appeal to reason it is quite distinct an ethical principle which is ‘written into the firmament’, so to speak. Ethics seem much stronger when backed up by God and a guarantee that ‘the just will prosper’.

This particular critique of Atheism, rationalism and science—that it gives no answer to the meaning of life—has been around since at least the time of Tolstoy, who writes: ‘Science is meaningless because it gives no answer to our question, the only important question for us: “What shall we do and how shall we live?”’.[1] This notion is picked up by the famous sociologist, Max Weber, who criticizes science and rationalism for disenchanting the world. He is concerned that the steady march of science is gradually eradicating those mystical aspects of reality which give people a reason for living. He is particularly concerned with the possibility of science stripping the universe of meaning outright:

Who...still believes that the findings of astronomy, biology, physics or chemistry could teach us anything about the meaning of the world...If these natural sciences lead to anything in this way, they are apt to make the belief that there is such a thing as the 'meaning' of the universe die out at its very roots.[2]

Weber is writing a time when Christianity continues to play a huge role in his society. In particular, Christianity imbues the universe with an intrinsic meaning. It explains the origins of the universe in the book of genesis. It explains the purpose of each individual’s life—to give glory to God. And it provides simple ethical guidelines in the Ten Commandments. Moreover, the Ten Commandments are backed up by an ontology, that is, a philosophy of Being, which gives them binding force. If one does not follow the Commandments one will burn in eternal fire. The just will prosper. Even if someone appears to be doing well in this life they will be judged by the supreme, all-knowing consciousness of the Lord when they die. There is no escaping morality. From the initial belief in a supreme being the four questions of being are all answered neatly and powerfully. Christianity is a comprehensive system for imbuing the world with meaning. As science slowly chips away at the various aspects of this system it undermines the construct as a whole.

Weber’s worry is exacerbated by the fact that as science destroys the current world of meanings it does not replace it with anything new. Science assumes that its questions are of imminent importance and spares little thought for the ramifications of its investigations:

…physics, chemistry, and astronomy, presuppose as self evident that it is worthwhile to know the ultimate laws of cosmic events as far as science can construe them... Yet this supposition can by no means be proved. And still less can it be proved that the existence of the world which these sciences describe is worthwhile, that it has any meaning or that it makes sense to live in such a world.[3]

This criticism stills stands today. Dawkins and other atheists are often bemused by the number of people who continue to hold onto religious or otherwise mystical beliefs despite the great progress of scientific explanation. Many wonder whether people are not simply stupid (this despite the fact that Weber, Tolstoy and many other Christians are evidently quite intelligent and sophisticated). But to my mind the problem is obviously that science does not provide an answer to the meaning of life. Yet this question is much more important to most people than knowing what gives the universe mass, for example. Life can be very difficult at times. Loved ones die, projects fail, good men do evil, and things do not come easily. Even more difficult is the feeling of anxiety—the nagging doubt that we carry around with us that constantly questions whether what we are doing is sensible, worthwhile and valuable. Everyone has spent a sleepless night thinking about whether their most recent decision was the correct one. The overall effect of this is to give life an element of suffering, and as Nietzsche noted: ‘man needs a reason for his suffering.’ Science does not provide this reason.

Dawkin’s fundamentally misunderstands the religious experience because he thinks it is about beauty and majesty when in fact it is about meaning. Consider the story of the man who believes in heaven and hell merely because: ‘otherwise all this [life] would be meaningless’.[4] Without judgement and an established, objective measure of correctness, life loses its seriousness. Dawkin’s has a similar story about someone for whom the beautiful garden is not good enough; they must invent fairies that live beneath it. Dawkin’s presumes that for this person the Garden is not adequately beautiful and draws parallels with those religious people for whom the universe is not sufficiently beautiful, they must invent something to make more grandiose. But this kind of enchantment of the world is not about making it more majestic or beautiful. Certainly the universe as revealed by science is far more magnificent than any imagery that religion has conjured up to date (certainly more majestic than forty virgins). The enchantment of the world—its fairies, Excalibur’s, demons and quests—is about making the world and life meaningful. The universe of science is overwhelming and awe-inspiring but it is meaningless. Galahad on his quest for the Holy Grail has a purpose and a goal that is right, just, good and important. What’s more, the recovery of the grail will make everyone happy. Is this not what we all really want? Happiness, purpose (what should I do) and justice (what is right)? What do I care if the universe is a billion, billion stars if at the end of the day I can see no reason for my being in that universe? Man needs a purpose, and without God or at least some enchantment of the world it is very difficult to find any purpose that does not lack seriousness. We are bothered by the fact that as soon as we die everything we ever created, everything we ever were, crumbles to dust and is lost in the sands of time.

At times I cannot understand why Dawkin’s continues to be bemused by people’s reluctance to abandon religion in the face of scientific advancement. I wholeheartedly agree with his argument that God is a poor hypothesis and should be abandoned as such, but religion is not about providing a foundation for science. The creation myths aren’t even primarily about the origins of the universe and the world, but about establishing the foundations of our current ontological and ethical situation, genesis being the most obvious example. The garden of Eden is not so much about the biological origins of man as about the origins of consciousness (that thing which makes us able to despair and doubt) and conscience—our ability to feel guilt. To expect people to abandon religion simply because of the theory of evolution (among others) is, I think, rather naive. Yet this is precisely the attitude of many atheists, especially of the most popular atheists. I suspect this is because many atheists, especially the most popular ones, have projects they care deeply about that are sufficient to make their life meaningful to them, and thus the invention of a grand cosmic drama in the name of meaning strikes them as childish and stupid. As Hitchens has frequently remarked of his lifelong quest to enhance the freedom of people everywhere: ‘this is as real to me as any Henry James revelation’.

Regardless, the vast majority of religious people will not abandon their faith until there is a compelling alternate narrative about ethics and meanings. And about happiness, because what is heaven if not the promise of eternal happiness.

It is my opinion that philosophy, which has an historical claim to being the seat of reason and the grandfather of science, has actually produced quite an effective response to the meaning of life question, but somehow this response has been overlooked. This is partially because of the complex manner in which it was explicated and partially because ‘real’ philosophy does not care about the meaning of life. In the past century and a half, since the writings of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, a great deal of time, effort and talent has been devoted to systematically investigating the meaning of life. Perhaps the most famous detective in this field was Jean Paul Sartre, but I will show, in this book, that Simone De Beauvoir made a much more significant contribution in this area than her partner. Moreover, Sartre’s contribution, mostly laid out in Being and Nothingness and Existentialism is a Humanism is not as powerful as it could be because it is not in fact concerned with the meaning of life, or else is tries very hard to appear concerned with something else, namely, metaphysics. Sartre’s book, like that of Heidegger—Being and Time—which was written around the same time, is largely concerned with perception and consciousness. It is about establishing man’s mode of being in the world so that we can furnish better answers to the traditional questions of metaphysics, in particular what is the real essence of things and what is the nature of time. This tradition has been continued by Gadamer (Truth and Method), Meleau-Ponty (The Phenomenology of Perception) and Deleuze, among others. All of these authors have made valuable contributions to the question of the meaning of life, but never directly. As a result, we lack a system or framework with which to investigate the meaning of life.

Many laypeople assume that philosophy’s principle concern is with the meaning of life. For example, in a review of Alain de Botton’s book Status Anxiety, the reviewer states: ‘singlehandedly, de Botton has taken philosophy back to its simplest and most important purpose: helping us to live our lives.’[5] But as Bertrand Russell points out in The History of Western Philosophy, the original Greek meaning of the word ‘philosophy’ is actually closer to what we understand as ‘physics’, and the work of early Greek philosophers was very much concerned with physics—the composition of the earth, the nature of the elements, the structure of the universe etc. It is only with Plato and Aristotle that philosophy starts to become more seriously concerned with ethics and the good life, and even then the books these authors wrote about such matters are small in comparison to the volume of works they penned on questions of physics and mathematics. After the rise of Christianity existential philosophy was largely the purview of theology and philosophy was free to seek answers to what are now its major streams of inquiry: Metaphysics, perception, time, essences, consciousness, knowledge, truth etc—these are the questions of ‘real’ philosophy, which has never admitted the meaning of life into its cloisters.

Another part of the reason why philosophy does not deal directly with the meaning of life and hence why its contribution is schizophrenic and overlooked is that, as in the case of the baffled atheists discussed above, most major philosophers are occupied with questions and issues they consider thoroughly important, serious and meaningful. As such they have no reason to investigate the very nature of meaning and value. Perhaps the most ironic example of this is Bertrand Russell, who made revolutionary contributions to more than a dozen areas and is widely regarded as one of the greatest intellectuals in history. Russell wrote a book—The Conquest of Happiness—which examines happiness and its related themes. His advice could almost be summarised as: ‘don’t get too caught up in these issues as it will only lead to self-absorption. Find a way you can meaningfully help others and get on with it’. Even when dealing directly with the subject, one of the greatest philosophers of all time suggests not dealing with the subject.

As a quick side note, if anyone finds the present volume too dense, I highly recommend The Conquest of Happiness. It is an insightful and well-intentioned book and the advice it gives is excellent. It does not, however, present a complete system, which is what I am trying to do here, and its advice can only be construed as just that, advice. Russell takes the position of a learned uncle and dispenses wisdom from the armchair. Outstanding wisdom, but it is not an academic book.

Interestingly, Nietzsche, arguably the first philosopher to undertake a systematic investigation of the meaning of life (or lack thereof) announces his distinct break with his philosopher colleagues early on in his major book on this subject—Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In the passage ‘On Scholars’, which Kaufmann describes as ‘Nietzsche’s autobiography’, he says:

For this is the truth: I have moved from the house of the scholars and I even banged the door behind me. My soul sat hungry at their table for too long; I am not, like them, trained to pursue knowledge as if it were nut-cracking.

Nietzsche repeatedly affirmed that in his eyes, Thus Spoke Zarathustra was his best book. Yet many philosophers, especially those in the English speaking countries, find these statements baffling, and maintain that The Genealogy of Morals is far superior. Some even prefer The Gay Science. Both the Genealogy and the Science are clearer than the pseudo-poetry of Zarathustra, so why did Nietzsche think it was a better book? Because it gave an answer to the meaning of life! Where the Genealogy is about morality and the Science about a variety of questions including truth, knowledge and the will, Zarathustra is a direct engagement with the question of the meaning of life. No wonder then that philosophers don’t find it very valuable.

I must admit a fondness for Nietzsche’s attitude and for his depiction of philosopher’s as preoccupied with ‘cracking-nuts’. In one of the most frustrating and depressing episodes from my undergraduate career I organised a reading group in my honours year to discuss Nietzsche’s philosophy. Several PhD students attended the first meeting and I was very excited. But when it came time to decide what sections to read these doctoral candidates started selecting sections that I had no recollection off; certainly I’d never found them important. It turned out that they were interested in Nietzsche’s theory of knowledge, his conception of truth, and his attitudes to science — all things I maintain Nietzsche barely cares about. They were looking in Nietzsche for answers to questions in analytical philosophy. What a disappointment. Here I was hoping to talk about good and evil, nausea, climbing and go-under, the overman etc, and all these Nietzsche scholars wanted to discuss was things he didn’t care much about. 

So philosophers don’t get it, at least not directly, and never will. But I digress.

My aim herein is to draw together those ideas in the history of philosophy that are of relevance to the question of the meaning of life and to thereby furnish a rigorous and fairly complete framework with which to investigate the question; and to provide some kind of preliminary answer. In some ways I am trying to break open a new line of inquiry for philosophy in an area that has for too long been dominated by theology and its pseudo-philosophy. Specifically, my aims are to develop an understanding of precisely what we are talking about when we discuss ‘the meaning of life’, establish a logical, reasonable ontology of ethics that maintains both their subjectivity and their seriousness, and provide a technique for getting at a way of living whereby individuals experience life as worth living. 

This book then, is not about disproving God. It is not about criticising the illogical aspects of religion, or taking the piss out of it, or showing that it is unscientific, or un-falsifiable, or politically dangerous, or false, or contradictory, or sick, or neurotic, or even just plain stupid. All these things, and many more, have been covered by Dawkins, Hitchens, Onfray and the many other proselytising atheists active today.

This book is about providing an atheistic meaning of life. It is about trying to pin down just what it is that we want from life, what it is that makes us feel dissatisfied with life, what keeps us up at night, and working out how to get it. It is about figuring out how to make life meaningful in the absence of a transcendent power, in the absence of enchantment, and in the absence of values written into the firmament. It is about building bridges over abysses. It is about trying to overcome nausea, despair and the feeling of aimlessness that accompanies life so often. It is about making life serious, and valuable, and important. And it is about doing all these things without God, without faith, without religion and without mysticism. There will be no talk of spirits, the soul, zen, the ‘om’, meditation, living in ‘the now’ or any of the other vague notions that people desperately in need of a quick fix turn to for answers when they can’t be bothered doing the hard yards. This book is for those who want to know rather than merely believe; for whom faith is not good.

This book is also about providing an ontology for ethics that works. Historically, one of the biggest problems associated with getting rid of God is that good and evil cease to have any seriousness—any ‘binding’ power. Dostoevsky famously noted: ‘if God is dead then everything is permitted’. The universe as we perceive it obviously does not punish those who do great evil. Stalin and Kim Jong-il died relatively peacefully in old age, for example. The just do not prosper. If there is no God, no heaven, no hell, then how can there be justice in the universe. How can ethics have authority? Where does their strength come from? How can they compel us to behave a certain way? How can I even say that someone is evil or some act good?

In the final chapters of this book I will attempt to provide an origin for ethics that not only grounds them in the subjective but also gives them binding power over the individual. Ethics, along with values and meanings, are created subjectively, but they do not lose their ability to control the individual’s behaviour because their experience of life as meaningful is bound up with behaving ethically. In this way ethics for the first time is connected directly to self-interest. There is no longer the old dichotomy between doing what is right and doing what is right for you. They are one and the same. This overcomes the brutal amount of guilt involved in traditional approaches to ethics, the neurosis that overwhelms many individuals who attempt to be good (Martin Luther pre-reformation being the most obvious example), and the difficulties inherent in getting someone to behave in a way that does not, at first glance, appear to be good for them.

The structure of this book is very unusual because much of it is occupied with pinning down and analysing exactly what it is that we are seeking when we talk of the meaning of life. Are we speaking of happiness? Being? Tranquillity? Nirvana? Salvation? What exactly is the issue? Are we looking for the meaning of life or merely meaning in life? Before any strong statements about ethics or what do with life can be made we must first pin down exactly what we want. This ‘pinning down’ will take the following form: I will make several ‘starts’ or ‘run-at’ at the central issue, namely, the questions of life. Each of these starts will illuminate a separate aspect of the issue. Hopefully, by the time all the starts are completed, we will have a good understanding of the issue, and we will be able to move onto answering our question. As such the structure will be closer to the German style of essay writing rather than the English. That is to say, I will go round and round the issue in ever tightening circles until it is fully explicated (the German method) rather than simply boring into it with a power drill (the English method).

The various ‘starts’ are as follows. First, I will investigate Kierkegaard’s concept of despair and his faith based solution to the problem of despair. I will ultimately dismiss the faith-based solution as flawed and inadequate. In the second start I will look at Nietzsche’s philosophy, specifically his contention that despair is something that must accepted and faced up to. I will also analyse his concept of ‘nausea’, which is something similar to despair but slightly different and, I would argue, a core component of what is it that ‘bothers us’ about a world without objective values and meanings. In the chapter on Nietzsche I will also investigate his ethical philosophy, in which I see the germination of the subjectively but serious ontology of ethics that I explicate in the final stages of this work.

Nietzsche and Kierkegaard represent the ‘first step’ that Western philosophy took towards investigating the nature of man’s being and what we want from life. Having completed an investigation of their contribution I will move onto an analysis of the second and arguably the most profound step thus far taken on this road, namely the work of Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. As part of this investigation I will also discuss, briefly, the contribution of Martin Heidegger to our understanding of human ontology. There will be many important things ‘pinned down’ during this investigation. The French existentialists—Beauvoir and Sartre—have a concept that I hold to be of significant importance for the meaning of life: bad faith. Along with this notion I will also look at their conception of consciousness, which is quite similar to that of Kierkegaard, as well as Sartre infamous and crucial assertion that ‘man is condemned to be free’. Of perhaps even more importance is the contribution of Sartre and Beauvoir to atheistic ethics, which forms the foundation of my ontology of ethics, and their contention that man ‘wants to be’. Just what this means will be discussed in full in chapter x. The concept of being and the disclosure of being are central elements of my theory of finding meaning in life.

Having made these three starts—Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and the French existentialists—I will take some time off from investigating European approaches to the meaning of life puzzle to discuss arguably more modern contributions from the English speaking world. These include the American understanding of happiness, which emphasises ecstasy; the materialist (by which I here mean a life of conspicuous consumption) approach to the meaning of life; and the bourgeois approach to the meaning of life. From this discussion it will become apparent that these three areas overlap significantly. The discussion of the bourgeois approach will also bring up ‘tranquillity’ as one way of conceiving the good life. At such, I will segue from here to an investigation of Buddhism and Schopenhauer’s rational Buddhism to see what contribution they have to make to our investigation.

At this point in the inquiry we should be armed with a thorough understanding of exactly what is we want from life, which is a mixture of being, happiness, authenticity and the absence of suffering. I will generally refer to this mixture as ‘satisfaction with life’ but exactly what I mean by this expression will not become clear until the end of the first five chapters.

In the second half of the book I will set about explicating a philosophical understanding of man and of life that brings about what we want from life without resorting to mysticism or retreating into logically untenable positions. This analysis will be split into two broad sections. The first will deal with finding life meaningful. The will be concerned with the question of purpose (what should I do?) and the question of identity (who am I?). The second section will deal with the ethical question (what is right?). By the conclusion of this second half I hope to have arrived at a philosophy of the meaning of life that will work for all those agnostics and atheists who currently despair excessively, and bring into the fold all those theists who are only religious because they see no other way of making life serious. 

I am trying to slide in the gap, to create a new discourse, and in a way that can be understood by anyone, because to my mind this issue is of crucial importance to our society. Sustainability is an issue because our materialism in untenable for example. We cannot begin to think about organisation until we know what to organise around. At the moment we organise around economics, but life is not about production and consumption.

Before continuing I must make a few quick points on my age and qualifications, on gender and on what I mean by an atheistic worldview.

First, my age: I am quite young and do not even possess a PhD in philosophy or theology. As such, many might consider me unqualified to write this text. I think there is certainly something to their argument, and hopefully, as I get older, wiser and more knowledgeable I will be able to improve this piece. However, I firmly hold that youth in this case is just as much an advantage as a disadvantage. This is because for the young these questions have a kind of insistent urgency that they do not in old age. In the years 18–30 or so man must determine the path he wants to walk in life and this is nearly impossible without answering the questions of being. As such, the pursuit of answers has a very practical purpose and is conducted in an extremely pragmatic way. By contrast, in old age when one’s life has already been partially lived out there is not the same urgency to find answers and so the answers that do emerge are often far from practical or pragmatic. This is, I believe, part of the reason why philosophy has never tackled the meaning of life head-on. By the time philosophers feel adequately qualified to make an investigation the blood has already cooled in their veins and the inquiry is conducted almost for aesthetic purposes rather than out of a primordial yearning for life itself. The investigation of the meaning of life is more than your average quest for knowledge; it is a quest for self-knowledge and a reason to be.

Second, on gender: in this book I speak exclusively in the male voice: man must, he must etc. This is not because I am a misogynist or because I think women are existentially deficient. Rather, much of the grounding of this philosophy is in personal experience and from my discussions of this topic with women I respect my impression is that the female experience is somewhat different to the male experience. I am here of course being exceedingly simplistic and a little insensitive towards gender studies and definitions of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ and everything in between (or around, because gender is perhaps not a spectrum). For this I apologise. In any case, the female experience of existence may be very similar to mine or it may be quite different, I am not sure and I do not presume to be able to give an answer. I feel that for me to write he/she etc would be arrogant and foolish. I am slightly concerned about extrapolating my experiences to all men but I am completely uncertain of extrapolating them to all women. I would welcome, joyously, any contributions to this area from people with a better grasp of gender psycho-dynamics than me. I think that humanity can only benefit from such contributions.

Now for a few points about atheism. The key premise for this book is that the world is devoid of any objective meanings, values or ethics. Nothing is written into the firmament. There is no cosmic order or grand design. There is nothing ‘out there’. This would hold even if the universe were discovered to not be entirely materialistic. The firmament is something quite different from a mental realm or the realm of the soul or some such. For the purposes of this book I take it as fact that there are no objective truths pertaining to meanings, values or ethics of the nature of 1 + 1 = 2. I do, in the ethical inquiry, consider the argument that ethics might be objective in the sense that something is good or bad all things being equal, but I dismiss even this and in any case, this does not constitute the kind of appeal to objectivity that theism makes, which transcends even mathematical truths.

A second thing that is crucial to underline is that atheism is an attitude not a hypothesis. Atheism is committed to the approach to scientific progress contained in Popper’s theory of falsification and Kuhn’s theory of paradigm shift. The way science operates is that hypotheses are proposed to a range of questions and then tested under controlled conditions. If the tests show sufficiently that a hypothesis is correct it is adopted until an equally vigorously tested refutation of the hypothesis emerges. At no point does a hypothesis become truth, merely a proposition. There is always an element of fallibility. However, in the case of theism, a hypothesis—the God hypothesis—is proposed in such a way as to be irrefutable, hence it is anti-scientific. I draw your attention here to the claims that ‘God moves in mysterious ways’, ‘God is unfathomable’ and the centrality of faith to theism. Religious belief does not require proof. In modern scientific method, when a satisfactory hypothesis does not exist science merely admits to ignorance and tries to get by. This is not the same as saying that God’s plans are mysterious or that he is unfathomable. This is of extreme significance when you consider arguments such as that made by Lennox when he suggests that atheism undercuts science because the materialist worldview does not allow for rationality. Atheism does allow for rationality, it just can’t explain its origins. Materialism is something we have good grounds for, but that is not to say that other possibilities are excluded. Rather, they are simply not adopted (we acknowledge ignorance instead) until we come across good, testable evidence.

Until a testable hypothesis comes along and proves adequate philosophers run ahead of science and speculate on various possibilities. This speculation has a significant role in guiding research. By way of example, a great deal of philosophy is currently being done regarding how materialism and consciousness might be able to be interconnected that is directly tying into some research in neuroscience and psychology. One could argue that this is precisely what theology does—looking for ways to tweak the God hypothesis to conform to contrary data and explain new phenomenon—and I would largely accept that claim. One could also argue that this is precisely what I am doing in this book. Besides a-priori arguments, the only real ‘test’ for my theories is ‘try it and see for yourself’. But this is the argument of many theists who claim that they have personally experienced God, so surely I am no better? But there is one crucial difference: I make no claims to objective fact. My theories here are grounded, always, in rationality, reason, and fallibility. I may well be wrong. What’s more, in the meantime, people can take what I say or leave it. I try my best to present a compelling case, but if those who read it do not find it compelling they are welcome to reject my theories and offer counters. This is not the case with theism. Theism is a hypothesis stated in a form that cannot be scientifically refuted that makes claim to a vast range of objective truths on the back of very limited (if any) evidence. For example, the argument from causation—that everything in the universe is caused and that, therefore, the universe must have a cause and that this cause is God—says nothing of the nature of the ‘prime mover’, yet many theists accept this proof as sufficient proof that homosexuality is evil. How does one follow from the other? Moreover, theism is committed to irrationality—‘faith in the absurd’, as Kierkegaard puts it. Yet despite being a deeply flawed hypothesis those who accept it are required, by its logic, to persecute those who do not conform to its tenets as though it was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. I hope that it does not take a genius to see how this causes immense problems for liberal democracy and society more generally. Typically, in modern liberal democracies we form policy through reasoned debate. But reasoned debate is impossible when an influential party to that debate cannot respond to reason because certain things ‘are writ’. Perhaps the best example of this to date is the Papal prohibition on condom use in Africa.

Right, now that I’ve got all that out of the way, on to Kierkegaard.

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[1] Quoted in Max Weber, ‘Science as a Vocation’, pg. 143

[2] Max Weber, ‘Science as a Vocation’, pg. 142

[3] Max Weber, op. cit. pg. 144

[4] Gore Vidal, Armageddon: Essays...

[5] Alain de Botton, ‘Status Anxiety’, jacket cover, back flap.