Julia Sweeney on God & Non-belief

[sarahmichigan]

You may know Julia Sweeney as an ex-SNL member and not know much more about her. Well, she's an atheist who has written a one-woman show about losing her faith in god, a cancer survivor, and the single mother of an adopted child as well.

She gave a speech at a "Freedom From Religion Foundation" convention not too long ago, and there are excerpts on the FFRF website. I love some of the points she makes about religion and belief (and she's funny, too).

#1. People Want to be good. "When I talk to [my friends] about religion, they don't say, "Oh, did I feel good yesterday thinking how Mary was a virgin and conceived Jesus!" They don't say anything about Catholicism. They talk about the community work that they've done. And that's what they connect with their church. They assign that good feeling to their church."

#2. A code of behavior is often necessary.

#3. People want to be in a club.

#4. People love to hate. "People feel closer to other people if they have a common person they don't like. Come on, everybody knows that's true! And it's true for us, too. Religion delivers on that, too! It gives people an instant common enemy, whether it's Islamic fundamentalists or secularists, that's immediately there and provided. At Saturday Night Live, we were never closer than when Steven Seagal hosted--because we hated him so much!"

Read the whole piece here.

Comments

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

I would make a distinction between non-logical (i.e. interpersonal and emotional) reasons for attachements to behaviors and "illogical" but I get what you're saying.

[guttaperk.livejournal.com]

Can you tell me some more about your distinction between illogical and non-logical? It sounds useful...

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

Well, illogical implies the presence of fallacious reasoning, and a "wrongness" to your thinking, while "non-logical" is just acknowledging that we make decisions based on factors OTHER than pure logic, and, personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

If you didn't hire someone as your personal assistant even though she's highly skilled based on some fallacious assumptions about her ability to do the job which are in turned based on illogical beliefs about women's capability in general- this would be an "illogical" decision.

Hiring someone with slightly less experience and a lower skill level over someone with better skills and more experience because the first person is a better fit with you personality-wise is a "non-logical" way of making a decision, but it isn't necessarily "illogical." If you're in a small business where you're working with only one or two other people, personality fit is certainly a huge factor (or should be) in hiring decisions.

[bernmarx.livejournal.com]

Even with this distinction, I feel there are non-trivial cases where atheists act illogically.

Christopher Hitchens on Bill Maher last week, for instance, had quite a few fallacies (such as his argument for Hussein's protection of al Qaeda in Iraq before our invasion, which appeared to be "Because I'm an editor of Vanity Fair and I said so!").

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm not going to dispute that. We're all prone to fallacious thinking, as the article I linked to in my previous post about the "Myth of Consistent Skepticism" noted.

[guttaperk.livejournal.com]

Aye.

Dawkins has, in my view, descended from a past foundation of calm, measured scientific writing into the most horribly illogical, theologically ill-informed screeds on religion, which do more to discredit religious criticism than to advance it.

I'm not going to pretend that I'm particularly unbiased on the issue myself, since I loved his earlier writings and had been looking forward to his wider criticisms. I feel almost personally betrayed!

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

Dawkins' "The God Delusion" got a mostly positive review in my Skeptical Enquirer in one issue, but a few issues later, they also published a critical look at the places where Dawkins veers out into some unsupportable views and claims in the book, too. He's definitely not as logical on all points as he'd like to think he is.

[bernmarx.livejournal.com]

Dawkins I think has fallen victim to a common celebrity phenomenon, allowing himself to pander to the self-righteously spiteful among his audience. Hate is a powerful force for group cohesion, sadly more powerful than any of the positive emotions, and once the spark of "let's burn the witches!" takes hold, it's difficult to keep the fire from overpowering the core message.

That doesn't mean he should be excused for letting himself get where he is, of course. He should definitely be held accountable for it.

[guttaperk.livejournal.com]

Exactly so!

[guttaperk.livejournal.com]

Illogical = fallacious
Non-logical = extralogical, e.g. idiosyncratic preference

Completely reasonable.

I'd say, by the way, that hiring a better personality fit despite lower qualifications is utterly, utterly logical, and that dismissing personality factors is illogical in the extreme. I have HR research to back me up, too. :-D

[pstscrpt.livejournal.com]

I'd say, by the way, that hiring a better personality fit despite lower qualifications is utterly, utterly logical, and that dismissing personality factors is illogical in the extreme.

To generalize that, I've always thought that the presence of various emotions and preferences should be considered facts, and taken into account as factors when making logical decisions.

[bernmarx.livejournal.com]

I've always thought that the presence of various emotions and preferences should be considered facts,

So should "I'd be happier if there were a God" be considered a fact, and if so, shouldn't any decisions based on that be considered logical? In which case, someone who attends church every Sunday, who gives money to the Church, who reads religious literature and prays regularly: These are reasonable decisions for this person, correct? If so, on what grounds would you challenge a theist, as you have done repeatedly in the past?

[pstscrpt.livejournal.com]

So should "I'd be happier if there were a God" be considered a fact
Yes.

shouldn't any decisions based on that be considered logical
The only decision I can think of that could logically be based on that would be a decision to look for more evidence that there is a god.

[bernmarx.livejournal.com]

Mm. Then I don't understand your earlier tacit acceptance that somebody should use personality traits to hire somebody who is significantly less qualified. The logical thing that appears to follow, from my understanding of your position, from "I'd like to think that getting along with me is a better trait for an employee than someone being qualified for a position.", is to do HR research on the matter, not making a hiring decision.

[pstscrpt.livejournal.com]

"I'd like to think that getting along with me is a better trait for an employee than someone being qualified for a position."
That's a substantially bigger thing to accept than I had in mind. I meant "this person and I will get along better" would be a single fact that would be weighted against qualifications, somebody's history of how long they stay at each job, etc.

I'm thinking I didn't explain my reasoning very well in the previous comment. "I'd be happier if there were a God" is a perfectly acceptable fact -- it just doesn't seem to have many practical implications.

[bernmarx.livejournal.com]

Fair enough.

As an addendum, it could well be that someone's going to church, etc., IS a form of looking for proof. It's not unusual for someone to try several different churches and then commit to the one that appears to have the most real world efficacy (even if that efficacy is ultimately illusory).

[guttaperk.livejournal.com]

Exactly so!