“Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship—be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles—is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.”
I prefer Camus personally. The act of rebellion against ...well everything, but in this case against things to worship, against stories that try to hide the absurdity of the universe seems to me a narrative much less likely to be led astray in harmful ways, since it gives you no power or secret insight, only personal despair and personal happiness.
"I don't know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I cannot know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms. What I touch, what resists me — that I understand. And these two certainties — my appetite for the absolute and for unity and the impossibility of reducing this world to a rational and reasonable principle — I also know that I cannot reconcile them. What other truth can I admit without lying, without bringing in a hope I lack and which means nothing within the limits of my conditions?"
I love Camus as well. His idea of absurdism really struck a chord with me. We're on this ride in life where we just keep passing through absurd situations.
It's a really comical extension to an existentialism.
In that quote, Wallace is just morphing, conflating, and fudging the definition of the word "worship". He says people "worship" (with a variety of subtly different meanings) a variety of things and then, implies that because we can use the same word, "worship", to describe those activities, they are equivalent. I despise this rhetorical technique. I find it both insulting, intellectually dishonest and useless.
From the root worth "worth": weorþ "significant, valuable, of value; valued, appreciated, highly thought-of, deserving, meriting; honorable, noble, of high rank.
What do you hold in highest regard in your life? Family? Truth/honesty? Happiness? Other? (Saint) Thomas Aquinas said that the four typical substitutes for God are wealth, pleasure, power, and honor.
None of those things are necessarily bad in themselves—some amount are often necessary for life, and can be be used to achieve good things—but chasing them for the sake of themselves without a higher principle to guide you once acquire them has probably caused many people problems over the course of history.
Asking yourself "what is the highest good in my life? what is the thing/princple that I hold in highest esteem? what do I 'worship'?" can be a good spiritual/moral exercise.
Concepts shouldn't be dependent on the language they're conveyed in, though. Try translating the passage to a language without the word "worship", or with 100 sub-distinctions, or introduce a concept like "zen" and his point falls apart.
He also introduces a false dichotomy which equates "worship" with "theism". If I "worship" money or sex, no one would seriously say that makes me a "theist". So even if we accept his warped use of the term "worship", his claim that atheism doesn't exist still doesn't hold up.
> Thomas Aquinas said that the four typical substitutes for God are wealth, pleasure, power, and honor.
The most typical substitute for Catholic god throughout human history is probably some other god (or group of gods), followed by non-theistic religion, followed by non-religious pragmatic ethics of some sort. I really don't think the quote is relevant outside Thomas' church culture. That's especially true for modern Protestants who might be tempted to think this quote applies to them; you probably don't even know God in Thomas' opinion. I was raised Mormon, personally, and I'm sure the once-human God worshiped by my close ancestors would be an abomination to a Catholic like St. Aquinas.
> you probably don't even know God in Thomas' opinion.
Deus autem est ipsum esse. God is being itself. See Summa contra Gentiles for details.
Or, if you prefer Boethius, see De Trinitate: quod divina substantia est ipsum esse et ab ea est esse. The divine substance is being itself, and from it comes being.
The God I was taught was an entity that actually spoke, or otherwise communicated. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all spoke to him, as did Jesus. He said certain things, which means he necessarily did not say other things. If he said all possible things, he did not say anything at all (see Claude Shannon's work).
I don't see the utility of a God (or the belief in a God) that is everything, or "being itself". I already have words or phrases for those concepts ("everything" and "being itself", respectively). God, to me, was a supremely good entity who created people and who communicated particular ideas to us directly or through prophets. That describes a subset of "everything". For example, I am not God, and my cat is not God. The stories that the ancient Greeks tell about Hades or Zeus or Dionysus are not true of God. Would you say that they are?
For day-to-day operations, believing in such an entity is 'fine', as carrying around some more complicated idea can bog one down. Most of us don't have degrees in philosophy and metaphysics. Newtonian physics and gravity is fine for most of us as well; no need to get into Einstein.
But one shouldn't confuse mental shortcuts with actual reality.
As Aquinas explains it, God could not be a being, even the supreme being, or any other kind of "entity". This is because if he/He is one kind of entity he is not another kind of entity. And there would have to be a reason for Him being one kind and not another kind. But that reason would be external to God, and thus God's nature would thus be contingent on something other than Himself.
But then wouldn't that external reason be greater than God?
Aquinas, Contra Gentiles, I.22.8-9:
> [8] Moreover, if something can exist only when several elements come together, it is composite. But no thing in which the essence is other than the being can exist unless several elements come together, namely, the essence and the being. Hence, every thing in which the essence is other than the being is composite. But, as we have shown, God is not composite. Therefore, God's being is His essence.
> [9] Every thing, furthermore, exists because it has being. A thing whose essence is not its being, consequently, is not through its essence but by participation in something, namely, being itself. But that which is through participation in something cannot be the first being, because prior to it is the being in which it participates in order to be. But God is the first being, with nothing prior to Him. His essence is, therefore, His being.
> The stories that the ancient Greeks tell about Hades or Zeus or Dionysus are not true of God. Would you say that they are?
The entities of the Greek pantheon are creatures. Perhaps powerful ones, but creatures not the less. That fact we use the term "god(s)" for them as well as the Christian God is an artefact of language.
See Edward Feser's book Aquinas for a good treatment of this subject in more modern language. Trying to follow translated Latin can be slow going, and isn't really necessary unless you really want to go to primary sources—but one has to be mindful of terminology and ascribing modern interpretations to certain words used.
> For day-to-day operations, believing in such an entity is 'fine', as carrying around some more complicated idea can bog one down. Most of us don't have degrees in philosophy and metaphysics. Newtonian physics and gravity is fine for most of us as well; no need to get into Einstein.
The only thing I'd say about this is that the omni-God which is everything and being itself is actually less complicated than the God in the bible or any other holy book, who said and did certain things and did not say or do certain other things. A God who's nature is constrained for some reason, even if that reason is beyond our understanding. That God, which I think I'm safe in guessing is the God that most theistic people believe in, is much more complicated than the "superlative" God.
I understand the line of reasoning that makes "God" into a word that refers to everything. I get where Aquinas is coming from. As somebody who no longer believes in any god or gods, I even agree with him to a far greater extent than I agree with most theists. However, I think that what Aquinas describes is different enough from what "God" means to most theists to merit a different term. Christians are relatively new to the game of God-making; they can't just say that everybody else has got it wrong.
> That fact we use the term "god(s)" for them as well as the Christian God is an artefact of language.
I disagree; I think it's an artifact of history. The Christian God is the Jewish God, and the Jewish God was comparable to the gods of other cultures. Specific entity, specific communiques, specific intent.
The "artifact of language" arises much, much later: It is Aquinas and others attempting to use the word "God", which has an ancient meaning, to describe a totally abstract metaphysical concept.
> The only thing I'd say about this is that the omni-God which is everything and being itself is actually less complicated than the God in the bible [...]
The (Catholic) Christian God is not everything. That God is being itself. And that God is the God of the Old and New Testament.
> However, I think that what Aquinas describes is different enough from what "God" means to most theists to merit a different term.
Most believers are not theologians and philosophers, so the day-to-day mental of a Bearded Dude in the Sky may be good enough.
> It is Aquinas and others attempting to use the word "God", which has an ancient meaning, to describe a totally abstract metaphysical concept.
Which is why we get into things like Unmoved Mover, First Cause, etc:
Aristotle, whom Aquinas draws inspiration from, may view the Unmoved Mover as more of a concept. But the Christian God is not a concept, but a person (or persons, given the Trinity), which is seeking a personal relationship with each of us.
the wikipedia hole that begins with "Yaweh" will probably be interesting to you. I found it enlightening - the progression of a monotheism from a polytheist pantheon reads much like a sort of narrative branch-then-retcon.
I'm also tempted to draw a parallel with the hard sciences, though. As the thinking matures and evolves on the shape of a theology, you reduce the fluff and get rid of ideas that no longer fit your concept of reality. Part of the trend we might be seeing with church numbers is that christianity as we know it may have written themselves into a corner.
I'm a particular fan of buddhist concepts of the divine for their ability to be abstracted into many different contexts. they tend not to touch things that can be disproven (yet), and by dealing with only the absolutely intangible, stay relevant. the problem space is limited to the utility of the thought. Stick to the metaphysical and you don't risk dissolution when you do things like make unqualified statements about what makes "God" angry.
>It is etymologically correct though: condition of being worthy, dignity, glory, distinction, honor, renown.
The etymology is not even close to being relevant. Conflating two different meanings of the word "worship" and implying their equivalence is dishonest and deeply unsound. That is true even if it is the definition of worship fits in both cases.
> The etymology is not even close to being relevant. Conflating two different meanings of the word "worship" and implying their equivalence is dishonest and deeply unsound. That is true even if it is the definition of worship fits in both cases.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you wrote, but it seems to me that Wallace is actually arguing the point: that these two senses are in fact an artificial distinction, that people are inherently religious, that they are inherently worshipers, at least of a sort. It seems like he is saying that wherever we find our identity is a god that we worship.
Now one can argue, of course, that idols only exist if God exists, and if (or since) God does not, Wallace is ipso facto wrong.
On the other hand, one might also make the argument that the polytheistic impulse is really a transfer of worship of a particular thing to a properly-named deity with some window dressing, and that all moderns have really done is to disown the deities and ritual while maintaining an attachment to their blessings.
Is that fair? I don't know. But I would wager that Wallace isn't being disingenuous here, even if he's being provocative. I was under the impression he was at least nominally an atheist.
> Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you wrote, but it seems to me that Wallace is actually arguing the point: that these two senses are in fact an artificial distinction, that people are inherently religious, that they are inherently worshipers, at least of a sort. It seems like he is saying that wherever we find our identity is a god that we worship.
It is perfectly fine for him to argue that they are equivalent (though I disagree). The issue is relying on the etymology of the word worship to argue that point.
I'd also like to clarify that while I disagree with Wallace, the accusation of dishonestly was directed at throw0101a, who made an absurd etymology based argument after it had already been pointed out that such arguments are flawed.
It's pretty clear that that "worship" here refers to where we practice focusing our heart's yearnings, not to a set of religious rites. Synonyms of this meaning of "worship" include "revere" and "venerate".
No. Because he opens his thought with saying that "Atheism" doesn't exist. Atheism isn't a rejection of "yearning" or "reverence". It's a rejection of religion.
He's just playing word games, and you are falling for it.
I absolutely agree. It's just your typical pseudo-intellectualism rant here. It starts with a provocative declaration and then backed up with some explanation that is technically true, but doesn't offer any actual insights or value.
That would be anti-theism, or "strong atheism", though. It's the difference between "not holding any belief related to the existence of a god", and "holding the belief that there is no god".
Not to be confused with "agnosticism" which is "holding the belief that it cannot be known whether there is a god".
He is playing word games, but he's not trying to trick anyone. When he says atheism doesn't exist, it's just a stylistic flourish. It's not the point of the passage; he's not trying to argue that everyone believes in god.
The point of the passage is that everyone needs a source of meaning in their life, and that religious is more psychologically healthy option than the alternatives.
> When he says atheism doesn't exist, it's just a stylistic flourish. It's not the point of the passage; he's not trying to argue that everyone believes in god.
It's not trolling if the audience is intended to see the true meaning. The speech was given to a group of students graduating a liberal arts college. It's a group of people that would appreciate literary devices that don't beat you over the head.
I think you've already fallen for literalness as the only way to interpret or value anything. Which is unfortunate because all of the momentous truths in life (ie, that matter to corporeal beings, to us) are not of the literal variety. You probably know this on some buried level but you cling to the literalness anyway. Why?
DFW is making a compelling point. The words were taken from his magnificent "This is water" commencement address at Kenyon College in the early naughts.
He’s a writer, sure, but that doesn’t mean that bad writing is not fair game for criticism. Redefining words is a common technique in this style of apologetics to avoid having to engage with an argument intellectually and it being used by a famous writer doesn’t make it more worthy.
No it isn't. I'm sorry but not all writing needs pedants nitpicking to get the point across. The point is extremely clear and you can argue about the nuance but there is no hidden meaning or contradiction here.
As evidenced by this entire thread, the point isn't extremely clear _because_ of the writing. I don't think it's just a question of nuance, either, both because he was far too skilled a writer to be unfamiliar with common English vocabulary and it's very much following in a tradition of writing from people who are uncomfortable with wanting to believe in something which they can't justify on the evidence (the very definition of religious faith — see e.g. Hebrews 11:1). Some people react to that by rejecting facts but others take an approach of basically arguing that nobody is purely rational and therefore they can believe what they want, giving them carte blanche to believe things they suspect but don't want to admit are just human creations. As a former fundamentalist, I've seen quite a few examples of that — a very popular one is trying to equate faith or relief in science as being equivalent to their religious counterparts.
Given DFW's history of depression, having rejected his parents' atheism, and having relied on AA in his struggle with addition, I am quite inclined to believe that the latter explanation is true in this case as well. I can understand why he wanted to have a special belief system which would be constructive as a break from the painful destructive behavior he was all too familiar with but that makes it the desperate longings of a broken person rather than a divine truth.
The point is much more clear when taken in context with the longer speech. When taken out of context it confuses the central point.
The statement about atheists not existing is hyperbole used in passing. He doesn't mean there is absolutely no difference between religious and unreligious people. He means they are often similar in non-obvious ways.
The central point of the full speech is that people should be intentional about what they choose to think and care about. It's not too far from stoicism which seems pretty popular in SV/HN.
The chain of points from this passage back to this central point are:
- Atheists and religious people are similar in that they both have a need to find meaning in their life.
- The alternatives that people find for sources of meaning (power, money, looks, etc) are often psychologically harmful.
- These harmful sources of meaning are often adopted by us unconsciously ("by default").
- It is important to be intentional about what we care about because if we are not, we will default to the harmful sources of meaning.
I agree that there is likely some projection of DFW's own psychological issues onto non-religious people at large, and that a lot of people can live happy lives without some form of veneration.
On the other hand, I think his advice is useful for some. I personally find his message about choosing your values intentionally valuable.
----
Even when taken in context, I admit his writing isn't super clear to a general audience. DFW was fond of experimental writing and also believed that writing should be tailored to the audience. His audience in this case was a liberal arts college, so he may have felt comfortable stretching his use of language.
> The alternatives that people find for sources of meaning (power, money, looks, etc) are often psychologically harmful.
This why I generally lean towards the “sloppy writing” conclusion — it is indeed useful to consider your values carefully, but trying to dunk on atheists both confused the language and lead to the incorrect claim that religious beliefs are less harmful than secular ones which is easily disproven by talking to people who were mistreated by friends or family members who saw that as a religious requirement (e.g. many gay people) or whose religion embraced the same harmful behaviors (e.g. some state religions or cults, the prosperity gospel, etc.).
Better writing could avoid that distraction by focusing on the common harmful classes of behavior and how to recognize those patterns in any particular system. I don’t see this as experimental language use because it’s so far from novel in this particular context and the net effect is to obscure the point rather than reach some deeper understanding.
What positive outcome did you expect from a late reply containing nothing of substance? You’ve had 4 days to overcome the initial emotional reaction, why not try for something more?
No substance? Come on now, I thought it clearly communicated my opinion that you were being pedantic in focusing so narrowly on the denotations of English words. Words like "worship" often define fuzzy concepts and do not define things as precise as a function signature. The response to the original quote is so silly to me that I am compelled to continue replying. To ignore the quote's thrust and have your reading be short circuited by its "redefining" of words, especially given that it is a snippet of a wider work, making the initial criticism all the sillier, is too fun to ignore.
If someone is a fiction writer, we shouldn't care what they have to say? Sure. Then let's agree his quote is worthless.
But I'd still argue the opposite. This is a fiction writer who obviously is listened to. He's famous. He's quoted by random people on the internet. And those quotes are taken from speeches that he was presumably paid to give. Words are his profession. It's not correct to say that just because he doesn't do journalism that his words have no impact on reality.
On the contrary, because he is a writer, we should be especially wary of his words. His words are meant to convince you of a point. You can't just ignore his goals and say it's poetry.
His goal is to convince you that Atheism is bad, and he suggests that all atheists worship "something" that will destroy them (since it obviously isn't God, one of the only carve outs he leaves for worship that won't destroy you).
In the context of the above article, the point is crystal clear. The quote was posted with it's intended meaning: that atheists are nothing more than people who "worship" the material. That's bullshit. That's not what atheism is, and Wallace is being disingenuous.
Hyperbole. Of course atheism exists, but its used as an engaging opener.
Contrary to some other comments in this thread, the people complaining about the literal truth value are the ones falling for the author’s writing technique, not the other way around.
Don’t interpret it literally. Its used to assemble an idea that anything can be worshipped/venerated, not to make the argument that atheism doesn’t exist.
No, I agree he's equivocating and creating a false dichotomy. Wallace struggled with addiction and alcoholism much of his life, and said that AA was a powerful force in attempting to turn his life around. So it's not surprising that he sees religion and materialistic self-destruction as two sides of one coin. For an atheist who is not particularly self-destructive and content with his choices in life, the quote above reads as not overly insightful outside of explaining Wallace's character.
This redefining of the word worship do not work at all for me. We do not worship cooking food. The words do not describe well a hobby. It is negative associated with personal relationships. Worshiping a pet sound crazy.
It's worth pointing out that this equivalence is only possible in the English language (and maybe other Germanic languages?) where apparently the word worship means a lot of concepts (adoration, veneration, reverence) that in Romance languages are actually separate. In fact, the disagreement over this words is one of the most important differences between Catholicism and Protestantism.
I don't know how does this distinction work in other religions, but based on Wikipedia[1] it looks like adoration, veneration and reverence may also be different on many of them.
This is the most interesting take on this thread. What is otherwise a lot of atheists misunderstanding the English usage of worship by religious people and those familiar with them.
The crux of organized religion is being so vague that an individual can pick whatever parts of it fits into their own self-image. Thats what OP is tapping into in their quote. The Bible is re-written every 100 years to accommodate this.
>>"The Bible is re-written every 100 years to accommodate this."
This is provably false.
"It cannot be too strongly asserted that in substance the text of the Bible is certain: Especially is this the case with the New Testament, of early translations from it, and of quotations from it in the oldest writers of the Church, is so large that it is practically certain that the true reading of every doubtful passage is preserved in some one or other of these ancient authorities. This can be said of no other ancient book in the world."[1]
As an example, the New Testament is 25x more accurately copied across manuscripts than the Iliad [2].
"The variant readings about which any doubt remains among textual critics of the New Testament affect no material question of historic fact or of Christian faith and practice."[3]
[1] Kenyon, "Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts", p. 23
[2] Bruce M. Metzger, "Chapters in the History of New Testament Textual Criticism", cited by Geisler and Nix, "A General Introduction to the Bible", pp. 366f
[3] F.F. Bruce, "The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?" p. 15
I believe he meant that the collective interpretation of mainstream religious leaders changes over time and is radically different from one century to the next.
Exactly. Just look at how the attitude to homosexuality has shifted in the church (which I think is a great thing). They didn’t change the text, but they changed the emphasis and the oral sermons.
That doesn’t hold water either, or Thomas Aquinas wouldn’t still be considered by so many as “the highest expression of both natural reason and speculative theology” and the basis for modern clergical study.
It definitely does hold water. Here are several examples.
Until the Counter-reformation, Catholics were not allowed to lend money at interest due to the ancient prohibition against usury. After that point Catholic doctrine was changed to say that this was one of the commandments for the ancient Jews that was not intended for Christians. The Bible didn't change, but doctrine did. (This despite the fact that the only point in the Bible where Jesus is portrayed as acting angrily was throwing the moneychangers out of the temple. And why was their presence wrong? Because they were engaged in usury!)
The doctrine of papal infallibility is accepted by all Catholics today. Yet it was not part of Catholic doctrine until 1870.
Until 1616, the Catholic Church had no official doctrine on astronomy. In fact Copernicus dedicated his book to the Pope. And then the Copernican theory was ruled contrary to scripture. Catholics were banned from reading various books about it. A century later, the bans on the books were lifted. A century after that, the Catholic Church declared that the Copernican theory was in accord with scripture.
In all of these cases Scripture didn't change. Jesus still threw the moneylenders out of the temple for usury. Peter still received the keys to heaven. And Joshua bid the Sun to stand still, and not the Earth. But the beliefs that people had based on these passages /did/ change.
A minor point, Jesus has anger issues a number of times in the Bible, not just with the moneylenders. As an example, the time he got mad at a tree for not having fruit and cursed it to never bear fruit again.
>As an example, the time he got mad at a tree for not having fruit and cursed it to never bear fruit again.
A tree that was out of season, no less.
And this happens immediately before the verse where he chases out the moneylenders.
And on the way back, they pass the withered fig tree again and one of the disciples points it out and Jesus says "Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them,"
Misc points of doctrine are not really the “collective interpretation” as if fundamentals were changing, and the comment to which I replied said “radically different”.
None of your examples feel like radically different Catholicism, except perhaps the papal infallibility thing, though even that seems it was generally believed, but not categorically, before being written down and today is generally believed, but not categorically, so, not radically different.
I could not disagree more. Wallace's use of language here is instructive, poignant, and immensely useFUL.
I'll bet you're an engineer, data scientist, or other technical professional, not simply b/c you're here, but b/c your response to Wallace's use of ambiguity and multiple layers of meaning reveals as much about the nature of your own relationship with language, which I'd guess prefers that things should be clear, precise, and have singular meaning. (I'm certainly oversimplifying you, so apologies.)
Look into "cognitive decoupling", and you may find a dichotomy that illustrates some of your reaction to Wallace.
Regardless of words being context-dependent and having uncountable number of meanings, in the context of a single argument a word should generally only have one meaning.
Again, I could not disagree more with your interpretation of what's happening here.
I'd recommend you, too, read the article I linked in the comment above. To characterize Wallace's words as an "argument", as if he were a lawyer in the court of being—as if such a thing exists—, is to employ cognitive decoupling, and to miss the point.
There's nothing wrong with C.D.—it's absolutely useful and necessary to have contexts in which words mean one thing and one thing only, but it's equally if not more necessary to have contexts in which that constraint does not hold, in which we are free to make meaning by use of metaphor and non-literal comparison. Indeed, it's the only way in which we can point to dimensions of experience that do not yet have names; it's how language evolves and expands, it's how technical domains come into existence.
In all fairness, this same rhetorical technique was commonly used in the faith that I was raised in. We were often taught that one could violate the Jewish/Christian commandment to "have no other gods before me" by placing more importance on material goods or hobbies (your car, your boat, sports, etc.) than worshiping God.
Judaism was a monotheistic religion surrounded by polytheists, their concern was maintaining their cultural integrity and identity.
Other commandments (though shalt not covet, etc) are concerned with materialism and greed. "Though Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me" is pretty clearly about precisely what it says on the tin.
It's also New Testament, but the "Riches" is capitalized in specific translation you're using, it's not capitalized in New King James, and neither in New International Version. I'd wager it's relatively modern addition.
To see if that point is actually in the sources, you would need to go into Greek, or look for a good historic analysis of Gospel of Matthews.
[edit]
Ten commandments come from oral tradition, but most probably were written down at least a few hundreds years earlier (500 or 600BC)
Yes. Would you lie in court for your spouse? Is telling the truth more or less important than whatever consequences they would face from your honest testimony?
Luke 14:26:
> If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters--yes, even their own life--such a person cannot be my disciple.
This is hyperbole, which Jesus uses relatively often. It is also more subtle in the original Greek: while we often use the word "hate", the original has more of a connotation of (IIRC) separate-yourself-from. See also:
It is not that one's parents, spouse, siblings are bad in themselves, but that one has to be mindful that the source of being tempted to not act morally and doing the right thing can come from anywhere—even people that we would otherwise cherish.
Given the degree of your outrage, I think something other than "rhetorical technique" has triggered you here. Then again, maybe you are just really really opinionated about "rhetorical techniques" and following strict definitions of words? In that case, you must despise the vast majority of stories and literature because of their metaphors, parables, and subtly different meanings...
This is obviously incorrect. If someone is making an argument then there is a higher bar of what word usage means than stories about santa clause. And using words like "religion" with completely different, fuzzier, less meaningful definitions in order to make a point that doesn't address the topic of religion being discussed is in fact worthless at best. Manipulative and dishonest at worst.
It's up to the reader to decide what is worthwhile for them.
Also, whether that quote is relevant or not is not what is being argued. The original dispute (on a surface level) was about a "rhetorical technique". Now you say it is manipulative and dishonest, which is a completely different thing and obviously false.
It is not conflating. It is essentially giving advice for how to live, which is that meaning and identity and focus should not be on something material since those can and likely will be lost. Wallace even mentioned the Four Noble Truths as an option, which is not even part of a theistic worldview in many interpretations.
This is the same advice that most who study mental health would give.
You know who also sucks at writing? William Shakespeare
"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
In this quote, Shakespeare is just fudging the definition of "name". He says people and flowers both have something called a "name", implying their names are equivalent. This is intellectually dishonest because people's personal names are subtly different than the names you use to describe objects. I find this quote insulting and useless.
He's really not, though. He means that these are the activities from which people derive purpose. People derive purpose from religion, or money, or beauty, or status.
“The question is, ” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty. “which is to be master—that’s all.”
Trying to steel man David Foster Wallace here, I would say his point is that, if you define "religion" instead as a sort of personal philosophy, then we all have one. And because we all have a philosophy of some sort, we all have desires, rules, and some sort of ethical principles, we don't have atheists.
The point he has relies on a faulty premise. When people talk about religion and atheism, they aren't using the definition of Wallace. They're using the strict definition - non-theist. Not a theist. They don't believe in god. they are saying absolutely nothing about the rest of their philosophy.
He RELIES on changing the definition of religion into something it very clearly isn't. And he does this in order to provide evidence that people, who obviously exist, must not according to his definition. It's like saying "Homosexuality doesn't exist, because all homosexuality is is is rejecting the beauty of certain genders. But we all recognize the beauty of our mothers and brothers and fellow humans, and the grace they give and the home they provide. No human would be human without loving thy neighbor".
It's insulting. And other than that, it has absolutely no value, intellectually, morally, or otherwise.
Because the absence of logical rigor is what enables charlatans to continue to make a living off of people's desire to believe in something that is not so.
This is a problem that's bigger than religion - when people can't tell when they're being bullshitted to or when they use emotion instead of reason to decide on matters that significantly affect their lives and lives of others (not just which flavor of icecream to have), it's a problem.
Even science is pretty hard to justify with formal logic.
There's a pretty big gap between inductive reasoning (statistics) and deductive reasoning (formal logic), called the problem of induction. No logician or philosopher has come up with a widely accepted way to solve it in the roughly 200 years since David Hume started writing on the subject.
This sort of conflations are typical in social commentary situations, comedy especially. This is absolutely something I could see done in an act done by Carlin or Williams.
Unless you can elaborate and distinguish different kinds of "worship", your accusation is overblown. Maybe he used this word simply because it was the best choice available to capture and communicate the underlined meaning?
1. To believe in something unobservable by conventional means.
2. To value something over anything else.
The word "atheist" clearly implies the first, and he never explains what meaning of the word "atheist" he uses in his "there are no atheists". So this is either a rhetorical trick, or a tautology that defines "atheist" as, roughly, "someone who doesn't value anything that much", but never goes anywhere with this definition.
I like the atheist movement, but there definitely is one major logical inconsistency in it. The whole driving motive behind atheism is that folks have looked at existing religions, where people believe in provably false statements, and – you know, that's "bad". It's bad because it's factually false.
The key thing is that the valuation of objective truth here goes way beyond just a calculus of hedonic means and ends - but is treated as something with inherent moral value. For most of these people (speaking from personal experience as one), if you're given a red/blue pill choice between "hedonic misery but knowing the truth of your existence" versus "ignorance and bliss", most of us are morally obligated to chose the former.
It's a bravery and honor thing. I don't want a security blanket of false beliefs. I want to know the truth.
But that right there - if we're rejecting the hedonic "means and ends" justification - has no logical justification whatsoever. The only reason we want to know "the actual truth" is a completely unjustifiable woo-woo piece of "just because we do". It's like an axiom - there's no proof for it or justification for it. It's just there. We value the truth for no freaking reason - we consider it just somehow morally good in some inherent, unprovable way - dare I say, because it's "sacred", somehow.
I don't mind making a religion out of pure truth-seeking. That seems like a great idea, honestly. But let's recognize it for what it is.
This is useless reasoning. An atheist is someone who is sure there is no God.
An agnostic is someone that admits they don’t know.
A militant agnostic is a person that knows that you don’t know, and wants you to admit it.
The first and third are actual religions / political movements. Claiming the people that ascribe to them are wrong is as offensive as saying all modern members of religion X are self-deluding hypocrites.
Since we’re apparently not using words to mean what they mean, you have no possible rebuttal.
Apparently he is not comparing religion and atheism. He also mentioned money, beauty, etc. You seems miss the point of the quote as a whole. Even atheism is not worship. Atheists, as human, still need something to worship on, like everyone else. But again, the focus is really not atheists.
Getting downvoted. Worship here obviously means something other than religious. Worship money, wealth, power, etc. is commonly used in language. It's pointless to fixated on the narrow meaning of the word.
Here is a glaring example of debating semantics in hopes to discredit the actual meaning of something or attempt to kill the topic altogether. Appears to be a bad outcome from the rise of STEM worship.
I will wholly disagree with this point of view. Telling people that their whole category of thought doesn't exist based on your own personal variants of definitions is belittling.
I put in a different comment that this isn't that different in concept from telling homosexuals that they don't exist because we all love our mothers.
Feel free to assign the meaning you find most convenient to random words, but the fact is, we are in the thick of a thread about religion, in which Wallace's excerpt is being used to make a point ...
Oh yeah i am sidestepping that cause his quote doesn't really apply to religion. It's just a way to appeal to people who see no difference between money and ethics in a nice way.
Actually he's making philosophical commentary about the nature of what people dedicate themselves to. But if you want to get emotionally wrapped up in the definition of a word and ignore the message, go for it.
Exactly, he's pointing out that the revaluation of all religious values does not lead to atheism, but to individually chosen principles that must also be based on a faith due to the uncertainty that such beliefs are meant to deal with. Even athiesm itself can be viewed as a fundamentalist religious belief that is based on faith.
I find the idea that faith can't eat you alive to be strange given that we have so many examples of that happening in real life. Faith is no different than money, power, allure, etc... in that regard.
That's one reason people turn to atheism in the first place, to avoid getting gobbled up by religion.
Personally, I've seen churches eat way more people alive than greed or any other power allure.
Beauty consumes people at the beginning of life, but most get away from it at the start of adult age. The only other things that come close are political ideologies and personality cults.
I have minor criminal cousin named Jake, Jake doesn't claim to be anything else, unlike most Christians I've known who feel morally superior yet hold some of the least humanitarian ideas I've ever known. At least cousin Jake doesn't lie to himself about what he is.
I really don't understand why some people have to turn to atheism when not participating in organised religion is quite easy enough. This is what the article implies, church membership as opposed to faith. Why even bother to deny something that others believe without proof and needlessly argue about it? Maybe it makes them happy, more secure. Vocal atheists usually annoy me more than christian evanghelists, mostly because of the negative message.
Because the U.S. still has not even come close to mastering the separation of church and state which means depending on where you live it will confront you frequently whether you like or not. Burying your head in the sand does nothing if you believe the premise of that separation is virtuous. I am not atheist myself but I have yet to see anyone I know be vocal about their atheism, yet I know many that are vocal about their religious views. I am curious where you see vocal atheists enough that they annoy you?
Most of the ones I've met acted pretty much like Dawkins and got all worked up by their beliefs, mocked churchgoers and called them names. Maybe it preocupies them a great deal but I did not care to hear any of it, nor asked about it, it was them who sought to share their opinion on the matter.
I also live in a country where the separation between state and church is also not clear enough. The church is quite openly corrupt and gets laughed at by my generation and is becoming less relevant every year.
I don’t know about your country but here in the U.S. vocal religion is used to justify racism, sexism, refusal of medical care, and employers dictating their religious views on marriage, reproduction, etc. on their employees. Richard Dawkins is annoying, to be clear, and I am deeply skeptical of some of the factors in how he singles out Islam but as far as I’m aware he’s never tried to prevent someone from seeing a doctor or said that a stranger shouldn’t be allowed to get married without his approval.
Here too. It's used against the LGBT community and my ultranationalists. At least they don't refuse medical care and made no attempts to ban abortion like in Poland, because the country had an awful abortion ban (unrelated to church) in the past and everyone older than 40 remembers it. But rumours are spread amongst the religious community about vaccines, microchips, 5G etc. We used to joke that when getting vaccinated against covid, the state secretly intriduced 5G microchips under our skin.
> Maybe it preocupies them a great deal but I did not care to hear any of it, nor asked about it, it was them who sought to share their opinion on the matter.
Congratulations, now you know how most American atheists feel about religious people and their beliefs.
I am an atheist. I am without god. I respect no external judgement upon me.
Am I pure? Have I fallen victim to the seduction of mammon and the innumerable trinkets of existence - of course I have, and accept I will until the day I die.
Do I worship myself and take excessive pride in my self-stated virtues - clearly I do, as you can see if you've read this far.
But outside of my petty rhetoric, I know I came from nothing and at the end of my life-span I will return from whence I came.
I find this comforting.
There's no game to win, no test to pass, no heaven to enter - just a feeling of solidarity with those I share my temporal-blip-in-the-light with.
I guess this makes sense if you define “atheism” as “not obsessing over something” and “worship” as a synonym for “unhealthy obsession.” I take issue with those definitions, and also with the premise that an adult must have an unhealthy obsession over something.
What if I told you, I don’t believe in god, nor obsess over money or beauty. Oh, I guess I “worship” all things in moderation and healthy relationships.
forgive me if im not moved by the edict of an alcoholic misogynist trying to assuage his own fears of moral impropriety and existential castaway after failing twice to join the Catholic church. Wallace enrobes the exhausted and derisive narrative of evangelicals confronted with an alternative to the almighty they themselves find personally intolerable in an almost comically dismissive tone. At least Thomas Aquinas had the decency to avoid Reducto ad Absurdum when he published his metaphysical treatise.
Had we only outlawed the semiconductor im sure Gallup would enjoy a more sterling report of gods children, however i myself may be amiss. Christian Evangelism on the whole has seen a marked decline since its apex during the second Bush administration.
I imagine that many people might read this quote (out of context) from his speech "This is Water" and in this thread discussing US church membership, and think, "This seems like DFW is defending religion." But, I think this is far from the case. I think this was DFW indicting modern secular consumer society as no better than religion in its vapidity. "Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship." This is the modern consumer choice, boiled down.
The point of the speech is not to convince you that worshiping religion might be a better idea than worshiping money, things, power, or vanity. Instead, the point of the speech is to convince you that a human's "default setting" (another phrase he uses in the speech) is to worship something. And, often, that worship of something simply happens to adults, as they are going through the motions of the modern drudgery of everyday life.
Thus to move beyond worship requires a level of education (and introspection) not typically accessed by everyday adults -- yet, it's still available to all, should they try hard enough to pursue it and to see it (that is: the water surrounding the fish who swim in it).
This being a college commencement speech, DFW encourages the young graduates to use their education, and the introspection it allows, to rise above the various human psychological biases (especially self-centered behaviors and attitudes) that might make their lives feel meaningless and miserable in the moment (or in retrospect).
> But if we should serve others, and together serve some common goal or idea - for any one you, what is that idea? And who are those people?
> In my experience, you will truly serve only what you love, because, as the prophet says, service is love made visible.
> If you love friends, you will serve your friends.
> If you love community, you will serve your community.
> If you love money, you will serve your money.
> And if you love only yourself, you will serve only yourself. And you will have only yourself. So no more winning. Instead, try to love others and serve others, and hopefully find those who love and serve you in return.
I have absolutely tried to hard wire the "choose how to think" into my brain. It is never easy.
His example of the swerving SUV racing through traffic maybe just possibly driving that way because of a personal emergency stuck with me. I don't have to assume the worst of people who are acting in a way I don't agree with, and to consider this anytime I'm getting worked up over something can be quite helpful.
It is sad that so many people do not understand WHY religion is worse over other things mentioned here.
These things are SHARED among many things, along with religion;
- we humans tend to form social hierarchies
- we all want to be belong
- we want to be the hero of our story
- life is hard, and death is terrifying, so we need lullabies
- some rules/codes required wherever there are more than 1 person alive. Be it religious, moral or written/legal.
- we all need some ideal to work towards
This however, is SPECIAL to religion;
Religion makes it a habit in believers to believe without evidence, forbits questioning, and delays answers to "afterlife".
Hence takes away the power of understanding and reasoning.
It installs a backdoor to people's minds so to speak. From which all the other bullshit are welcome to come in and also take a seat in their mind.
“ Religion makes it a habit in believers to believe without evidence, forbits questioning, and delays answers to "afterlife". Hence takes away the power of understanding and reasoning.”
I haven’t found this to be true, but it is definitely possible in fundamentalist circles.
I have found atheists who run from the question and don’t want to engage with ‘is there meaning, or is there no meaning?’
I think Wallace is right in a sense. But I think 'worship' is the wrong word and if we're interpreting this literally then no, there is such thing as atheism.
I get the sense people too often take this quote out of context to suggest atheism is some form of religion. Wallace was a master of the metaphor. I don't believe that he meant this literally. I think he could have used the word 'nihilist' instead and gotten the point across but I understand why he didn't.
> is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive
I’ve seen plenty of people who have dedicated themselves to religion, made it completely consuming (ie go to church every day, God is the only thing they talk about, and the Bible is their only frame of reference), and they are unhappy because Religion itself has eaten them alive.
I know religious folks who are the most miserable people ever. Because they get jealous when someone else worship more than them. They will criticize and belittle everyone they can. And I know atheists who are way more chill than so called hippie/spiritual/religious folks claim to be. Just because one is atheist doesn't mean they will be greedy capitalist or sex-addict or something else.
Here's what's actually true and not at all weird: religious people from evangelical religions draw parallels to non-religious people by pretending that every human is born with the need to venerate something. It's how they rationalize their evangelism. They have to, because admitting that other people do not share these imperfections is akin to admitting that some people do not need what they have to share. The fun thing about lying is that if you wrap it up in enough gift wrapping, people will tire out and accept it as truth rather than spending the time to uncover the lie.
Nope. I for one don’t worship anything. Everything is flawed and imperfect. But there is still love, happiness, beauty in this world. Right next to hate, despair and ugliness.
> ...pretty much anything else you worship [other than religion] will eat you alive. If you worship money and things... then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you.
This is implying that worshiping religion/god/spirituality is exempt from extreme obsession. But I have to contest that religion can create far more extreme of obsessions than other forms of "worship" that Wallace references such as beauty, money, etc..
I grew up religious (in a high-demand religion) and saw that the religion created extremists among most of our church members. While an obsessive "worship" of losing weight can lead to anorexia, we see a good thing become bad. Being interesting in beauty isn't bad by itself, but an obsessive/extreme version can lead to depression and many other things.
Religion is no exception (even though Wallace seems to exclude it). An obsession over religion leads people to over analyze their life in the search of being perfect. It forces them to make unnecessary sacrifices for a reward that they will never actually attain. I've seen it tear apart families as bad as alcohol abuse or domestic violence can. There is a very dark, evil side to religion. The religion I was involved with put so much pressure on people to live life a certain way, to be perfect, that it was unattainable. The religion's goal is to enforce compliance and promote unity through shared suffering. But it has negative effects too. I've lost many close friends (including one roommate) who committed suicide from church pressures. Prescription drug abuse is particularly bad within the community that I grew up in, I personally know several people who have life-long addictions to prescription opioids that started from church pressures. I have seen domestic violence and child sexual abuse, all justified (and protected and buried) under religious arguments. My personal experience with religion shows consequences that far exceed those of other obsessions such as wealth, beauty, fitness, drugs, and so on. So I would be very careful about giving religion a "pass".
Are all religions bad? Probably not. I know plenty of people who have healthy relationships with religion. But the bad stuff is definitely there too, and it is FAR from rare. And I am only talking about relatively tame religions too. We can go even more extreme and start discussing the effects that religion have had on promoting unspeakable acts such as the holocaust, the crusades, the jihads, 9/11 attacks, the inquisition, Boston marathon bombs, numerous mass shootings, Incan & Mayan sacrifices, the KKK, witch hunts, wacko in waco, jim jones mass suicide, and this is a short list.
I am no longer religious myself (it was a religion imposed on me by my parents), but I have no problem with other people being religious. I would just caution that there are extremes, and religion is an easy one to fall into an extreme. You are literally discussing something that is "out of this world" and can not have any proof. The rewards are infinite (eternal life, glory without end, etc), which makes them more desirable to attain and justifies more extremes to earn. They also self-exclude and discriminate other people (your religion is right, everyone else is wrong or evil). The stakes that religion creates are simply so high, that it is easy to fall into the obsessive and extreme category, more so than worrying about an obsession over wealth or fitness.
Turing's work has some independent value, it's not just a mess of philosophical/moral opinions like Wallace is offering up in this speech. If nothing else, Wallace's suicide illustrates to me what a gulf there is between "saying things that sound wise" and actually living wisely. One has very little to do with the other.
A suicide doesn't mean your life wasn't lived wisely. He was suffering from a clinically-diagnosed depressive disorder, was told to stop taking antidepressants by his own doctor, and was recommended to try electric shock as an alternative. His suicide was less "stupid man is sad" than "Wow, look! The medical industry isn't even trying to fix depression."
Given that there topic seems to broadly be about happiness and personal satisfaction, you could argue that someone suffering from depression is either wholly unsuited to the task or someone with excellent perspective. I don't think it's overly surprising that suicide undermines your credibility on those topics with some people.
Yeah, I don't think the useful discussion is whether a wise person / person with wisdom would commit suicide, or whether a person who committed suicide could be considered wise.
The useful discussion is "Is this person's way of thinking probably going to help me improve my life?"—if someone committed suicide, I would think twice about thinking similarly to that person.
To illustrate why, I'm depressed. I don't have direct control over this. But I do have some control over what I think. If I bow to the thoughts "this life is not worth living", yeah, I become more likely to slit my wrists. But if I think "I'm not going to identify with these thoughts. I'm going to eat lunch and that will probably make me feel better", I think my life will be longer and better.
Not saying you can think yourself out of clinical depression, but I'm going to be careful about what I decide to think, and who I'm going to model in my thinking.
This doesn't make sense. You can't argue with Turing's math and algorithmic discoveries/creations (unless you can prove them wrong) but you certainly can some of his flawed philosophies. QED False equivocation.
I discount Turing's works because of his suicide. I think the Turing award ought to be renamed.
Consider all the love and respect directed at Robin Williams after he died. The perverse reality is that for someone in a suicidal frame of mind, that kind of love makes "I'd be better off dead" far more credible.
I think the other extreme, outright condemning someone, probably doesn't work either, as it's liable to make a person with suicidal feelings feel trapped.
So I settle for disapproval, that suicide is a permanent stain on someone's legacy, in the hope that it nudges someone to stick it out for another day.
David Foster Wallace