CREDERE DI CREDERE

https://feedly.com/i/entry//uNtJ5Te/bTWNrQ93eWUZRWG2zLfACizMrZ4kDb0FIs=_172d23ebe53:32dbc5:35147dfd

Le "persone religiose" sono persone religiose. In sintesi: penso di no.

Ci sono molti modi per accertarlo. Possiamo ascoltare cosa dichiarano, oppure soppesare gli argomenti che portano a sostegno della loro credenza, possiamo anche verificare fino a che punto accettano le implicazioni della loro fede, se sono conseguenti, infine se hanno un atteggiamento emotivo in linea con la loro religiosità.

Secondo me, la maggior parte dei "religiosi" soddisfa solo il criterio della dichiarazione formale. Noi dovremmo essere disposti a considerarle persone religiose solo perché dichiarano di esserlo. Quando agli "argomenti a sostegno", molti di loro sembrano disinteressati, semplicemente non ne posseggono e chiamano questa mancanza di evidenze "fede". Altri si appellano alla Bibbia come Parola di Dio, ma così facendo si incartano in un ragionamento circolare. Altri ancora sostengono che se la religiosità è così diffusa non puo' essere un caso, quando invece puo' esserlo eccome: tutti noi teniamo la destra guidando, ma trattasi di puro caso, potremmo anche tenere la sinistra e nulla cambierebbe.

Guardando alle implicazioni, purtroppo, le cose non possono che peggiorare: perché non lapidiamo l'adultera? Perché pensiamo che sia ingiusto e quindi interpretiamo la Bibbia in un certo modo, o perché interpretiamo la Bibbia in un certo modo e quindi riteniamo che sia ingiusto? Considerato che la Bibbia è chiarissima su questo punto e che l'interpretazione necessaria per giungere a conclusioni così divergenti è alquanto sofisticata, propenderei per la prima ipotesi. E perché non porgiamo l'altra guancia al nemico che ci percuote? Perché lo riteniamo assurdo e quindi interpretiamo in modo originale le chiarissime parole di Gesù o perché abbiamo rintracciato una sorprendente interpretazione delle solo apparentemente chiare parole di Gesù e quindi siamo giunti a conclusioni tanto differenti se non opposte? Insomma, molto semplicemente noi non seguiamo cio' che ci dice il Vangelo. Piuttosto, stabiliamo come è giusto agire e poi, con l'aiuto di legulei eruditi, facciamo in modo che lo dica, oltre alla nostra coscienza, anche il Vangelo.

Ancora: se i Vangeli sono parola di Dio li studieremmo alacremente per tutta la vita, non leggeremmo altro sul comodino! Non nego che ci sia chi si avvicini ad un simile comportamento, ma si tratta pur sempre di una minoranza poco rappresentativa. Ormai è poco rappresentativo anche chi va a Messa regolarmente. Anche la reazione emotiva della persona religiosa è alquanto al di sotto di cio' che ci si aspetterebbe. Persino il prete dal pulpito della Messa a cui vado (ore 20.00 della Domenica sera) ci riprende dicendo provocatoriamente "ma avete visto che facce avete?, chi mai potrebbe considerarvi persone che hanno appena ascoltato la Buona Novella!?". Alla morte di un nostro caro dovremmo essere felici per lui, considerarlo più vicino alla Casa del padre, io invece ai funerali, anche a quelli cattolici, vedo solo musi lunghi.

Il fatto che le "persone religiose" non sembrino affatto religiose, non vuole dire che siano mendaci, non stanno ordendo una truffa, loro "credono di credere" e vogliono dire innanzitutto a se stesse di essere religiose, tuttavia la loro fede è chiaramente depotenziata, la loro è una "quasi-credenza". Ma non si pensi che la "quasi-credenza" ci rallenta nel raggiungimento della meta, ci indirizza piuttosto verso una meta differente. Mi spiego meglio, mentre le credenze servono ai cercatori di verità, anche le "quasi-credenze" si prefiggono un obbiettivo: servono a rafforzare la coesione sociale e il senso d'identità. Per creare un legame forte tra più persone non è necessario credere in qualcosa, basta e avanza credere di credere in qualcosa. La fede delle "persone religiose" che non sono religiose, non serve alla Salvezza ma è più che sufficiente per la nostra buona convivenza.

confutare l'ipotesi meta atea

https://www.facebook.com/jasonfbrennan/posts/10207223839029930

vedii commenti di kevin vallier

"Meta-ateismo" di George Rey sostiene che la maggior parte dei credenti si limita a credere di credere, in realtà non crede ma è atea. L'autore porta diverse prove a supporto della sua tesi.

Ad ogni modo non è una tesi sorprendente poiché gli stessi credenti - con la teoria del peccato - sono consapevoli di quanto sia fragile la loro tesi. Il fatto che i loro comportamenti siano spesso incongrui puo' essere spiegato con la dottrina del peccato più che con l'ipotesi del meta-ateismo.

Divertirsi a rompere l’incantesimo

Divertirsi a rompere l’incantesimo

RELIGION FROM THE OUTSIDE – The Scientist as Rebel – Freeman Dyson

***

Trigger warning: – atei di professione – la religione da dentro e da fuori – credere di credere – la religione fa male o bene al mondo? – la religione a scuola – amore e terrorismo

***

BREAKING THE SPELL of religion is a game that many people can play. The best player of this game that I ever knew was Professor G. H. Hardy, a world-famous mathematician who happened to be a passionate atheist.

Note:HARDY: ATEO DI PROFESSIONE

There are two kinds of atheists, ordinary atheists who do not believe in God and passionate atheists who consider God to be their personal enemy.

Note:DUE TIPI DI ATEISMO

Paul Erdös was another world-famous mathematician who was a passionate atheist. Erdös always referred to God as SF, short for Supreme Fascist. Erdös had for many years successfully outwitted the dictators of Italy, Germany, and Hungary, moving from country to country to escape from their clutches.

Note:IL SUPER FASCISTA

And now comes Daniel Dennett to take his turn at breaking the spell. Dennett is a philosopher. In Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon1 he is confronting the philosophical questions arising from religion in the modern world.

Note:DENNETT

Why does religion exist? Why does it have such a powerful grip on people in many different cultures? Are the practical effects of religion preponderantly good or preponderantly evil? Is religion useful as a basis for public morality? What can we do to counter the spread of religious movements that we consider dangerous? Can the tools and methods of science help us to understand religion as a natural phenomenon?

Note:LE DOMANDE DI DENNETT

Dennett defines scientific inquiry in a narrow way, restricting it to the collection of evidence that is reproducible and testable. …He does not accept as scientific the great mass of evidence contained in historical narratives and personal experiences. Since it cannot be reproduced under controlled conditions, it does not belong to science. …

Note:COS’È LA RICERCA SCIENTIFICA PER DENNETT

He quotes with approval and high praise several passages from The Varieties of Religious Experience, the classic description of religion from the point of view of a psychologist, published by William James in 1902. …James is examining religion from the inside, like a doctor trying to see the world through the eyes of his patients. …He studied the personal experiences of saints and mystics as evidence of something real existing in a spiritual world …

Note:WILIAM JAMES

For Dennett, the visions of saints and mystics are worthless as evidence, since they are neither repeatable nor testable. Dennett is examining religion from the outside, following the rules of science.

Note:ESPERIENZE NON BRIPETIBILI

He explains them tentatively as products of a Darwinian competition between belief systems, in which only the fittest belief systems survive. The fitness of a belief system is defined by its ability to make new converts and retain their loyalty. …it has nothing to do with the truth or falsehood of the beliefs. …

Note:COME SPIEGARE LE RELIGIONI

He observes that belief, which means accepting certain doctrines as true, is different from belief in belief, which means believing belief in the same doctrines to be desirable. He finds evidence that large numbers of people who identify themselves as religious believers do not in fact believe the doctrines of their religions but only believe in belief as a desirable goal.

Note:CREDERE DI CREDERE

The phenomenon of “belief in belief” makes religion attractive to many people who would otherwise be hard to convert. To belong to a religion, you do not have to believe. You only have to want to believe, or perhaps you only have to pretend to believe. Belief is difficult, but belief in belief is easy.

Note:VOGLIA DI CREDERE

He quotes Alan Wolfe, one of the sociologists who study American religious organizations and practices: Evangelicalism’s popularity is due as much to its populistic and democratic urges—its determination to find out exactly what believers want and to offer it to them—as it is to certainties of the faith.…

Note:EVANGELICI E POPULISMO

Like Hardy and Erdös, Dennett plays the game of breaking the spell by making religion look silly. Many of my scientist friends and colleagues have similar prejudices. One famous scientist for whom I have a deep respect said to me, “Religion is a childhood disease from which we have recovered.” There is nothing wrong with such prejudices, provided that they are openly admitted.

Note:DIVERTIRSI A ROMPERE L’INCANTESIMO

In a long chapter entitled “Morality and Religion,” he blames religion for many of the worst evils of our century. He blames not only the minority of murderous fanatics whose religion impels them to acts of terrorism but also the majority of peaceful and moderate… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Note:FANATISMO E GUERRE

He quotes with approval the famous remark of the physicist Stephen Weinberg: “Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things—that takes religion.” Weinberg’s statement is true as far as it goes, but it is not the whole truth. To make it the whole truth, we must add… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Note:SIMMETRIA?

The main point of Christianity is that it is a religion for sinners. Jesus made that very clear. When the Pharisees asked his disciples, “Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?” he said, “I come… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Note:LA RELIGIONE DEI PECCATORI

I see no way to draw up a balance sheet, to weigh the good done by religion against the evil and decide which is greater by some impartial process. My own prejudice, looking at religion from the inside, leads me to conclude that the good vastly outweighs the evil. In many places in the United States, with widening gaps between rich and poor, churches… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Note:UN BILANCIO

Dennett, looking at religion from the outside, comes to the opposite conclusion. He sees the extreme religious sects that are breeding grounds for gangs of young terrorists and murderers, with the mass of ordinary believers giving… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Note:IL BILANCIO DI DENNETT

I see religion as a precious and ancient part of our human heritage. Dennett sees it as a load of superfluous mental baggage… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Note:EREDITÀ O ZAVORRA?

in the end,” he says, “my central policy recommendation is that we gently, firmly educate the people of the world, so that they can make truly… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Note:SCELTA INFORMATA

To give the recommendation a concrete meaning, the meaning of the little word “we” must be specified. Who are the “we” who are to… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Note:MA CHI EDUCA CHI?

“We” might be the parents of the children to be educated, or a local school board, or a national ministry of education, or a legally established ecclesiastical authority, or an… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Note:GENITORI? SCUOLA? ESPERTI?

The control of education is the arena in which political fights between religious believers and civil authorities become most bitter. In the United States these fights are made peculiarly intractable by the legal doctrine of separation of church and state, which forbids public schools to provide religious instruction. Parents with fundamentalist beliefs have a legitimate grievance, being… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Note:SCUOLA

When public education was instituted in England in 1870, eleven years after Darwin’s theory was published, Huxley was appointed to the royal commission which decided what to teach in the public schools. Huxley was himself an agnostic, but as a member of the commission he firmly insisted that religion should be taught in schools together with science. Every child should be taught the Christian Bible as an integral part of English culture. In recent times the scope of religious instruction in England has been extended to include Judaism and Islam.… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Note:SOLUZIONE HUXLEY

The teaching of religion in public schools coincided with a decline of religious belief and a… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Note:ESITO DELL’INSEGNAMENTO CONGIUNTO

Dennett also advocates more intensive research on religion considered from a scientific point of view. Here again, we can all agree with the recommendation, but we may disagree about the meaning of “research.” Dennett limits research to scientific investigations studying religious activities and organizations as social phenomena. In my opinion, such research, looking at religion from the outside, can be helpful but will never throw much light on the central mystery. The central mystery is the perennial sprouting of religious practices and beliefs in all human societies from ancient times until today. My mother, who was a skeptical Christian like me, used to say, “You can throw religion out of the door, but it will always come back through the window.”

Note:NON SOLO SOCIOLOGIA

Let me state frankly my own philosophical prejudices in opposition to Dennett. As human beings, we are groping for knowledge and understanding of the strange universe into which we are born. We have many ways of understanding, of which science is only one. Our thought processes are only partially based on logic, and are inextricably mixed with emotions and desires and social interactions.

Note:AFFERMARE IL MISTERO

To understand religion, it is necessary to explore it from the inside, as William James explored it in The Varieties of Religious Experience.

Note:STUDIARE DA DENTRO

The sacred writings, the Bhagavad Gita and the Koran and the Bible, tell us more about the essence of religion than any scientific study of religious organizations.

Note:IL SACRO

We can all agree that religion is a natural phenomenon, but nature may include many more things than we can grasp with the methods of science.

Note:NATURA E SCIENZA

The best source of information about modern Islamic terrorists that I know of is a book, Understanding Terror Networks, by Marc Sageman.2 Sageman is a former United States foreign service officer who worked with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Chapter 5 of his book, he describes in detail the network that planned and carried out the September 2001 attacks on the United States. He finds that the bonds holding the group together, during its formative years in Hamburg, were more personal than political. He concludes: “Despite the popular accounts of the 9/11 perpetrators in the press, in-group love rather than out-group hate seems a better explanation for their behavior.”

Note:AMORE E TERRORISMO

We have no firsthand testimony from the young men who carried out the September 11 attacks. They were not as highly educated and as thoughtful as the kamikaze pilots, and they were more influenced by religion. But there is strong evidence that they were not brainwashed zombies. They were soldiers enlisted in a secret brotherhood that gave meaning and purpose to their lives, working together in a brilliantly executed operation against the strongest power in the world. According to Sageman, they were motivated like the kamikaze pilots, more by loyalty to their comrades than by hatred of the enemy.

DAL MALE COMPIUTO IN NOME DELLA RELIGIONE COMPRENDIAMO MEGLIO IL BENE CHE PUÒ FARE.

In cosa crede il "credente"?

Quanti sono i "credenti" che credono in Dio?

Secondo Georges Rey pochi, pochissimi. È quanto sostiene nel saggio "Meta-atheism: Reasons to Think that Few People Actually Believe in God".

Per molti credenti gli argomenti pro o contro l'esistenza di Dio sembrano poco rilevanti. La cosa è piuttosto imbarazzante, un simile disinteresse è accettabile nel caso di un agnostico ma non nel caso di un credente...

... I find it hard to believe that anyone really buys the "ontological argument," or any of Aquinas' "five ways." Existence may or may not be a predicate, and there may or may not be unmoved movers, uncaused causers, and undesigned teleological systems, but these arguments don't remotely establish their intended conclusion... I began to wonder whether the arguments were ever really intended seriously; and this led me to wonder whether anyone actually believed their conclusion....

La materia teologica, oltretutto, è sdrucciolevole ed è facile finire a credere quel che si desidera, cosicché, anche quando l’analisi non è banale, l'auto-inganno è sempre dietro l'angolo...

... For starters, there are the formidable difficulties of expressing oneself clearly in language... there is the familiar phenomenon of adjusting what one says... there's also the phenomenon of self-deception...

I "credenti" che non credono in Dio potrebbero essere definiti  meta-atei. L'ipotesi del meta-ateismo è la seguente...

... Despite appearances, not many people -particularly, not many adults who've been exposed to standard Western science- seriously believe in God; most of those who sincerely claim to do so are self-deceived....

In poche parole: la credenza religiosa non è quasi mai autentica.

Attenzione, non confondiamo ateismo e meta-ateismo: l'ipotesi meta-atea non dice nulla circa l'esistenza di Dio...

... meta-atheism doesn't entail atheism: it's a view not about God and whether He exists, but about whether people actually believe that He does...

Per testare l'ipotesi andando oltre le sensazioni epidermiche è il caso di  precisare cosa si intende per Dio...

.... God is a psychological being, i.e., a being capable of some or other mental state, such as knowing, caring, loving, disapproving...

Da questa definizione scopriamo che alcuni candidati al meta-ateismo sono in realtà atei veri e propri, quindi irrilevanti per l’analisi...

... If you think of God as something other than a psychological being of this sort, or that talk of God is simply a metaphorical or "symbolic" way of talking about love, the possibility of goodness, or the Big Bang, then much of what I say may not apply...

Si badi bene che il meta-ateismo non è un'etichetta infamante, non è una forma di schizofrenia: l'autoinganno fa parte della normalità...

... Now, of course, I don't think that most religious people are in fact schizophrenic. Nor do I think all religious people are being insincere. Rather, the meta-atheism I want to defend is the view that many people who sincerely claim to believe in God are self-deceived, which, as some of the other cases I've already mentioned show, can be entirely "normal," and even morally benign (nothing like a little self-deception to keep an otherwise querulous family together!)...

Ma veniamo ai maggiori indizi relativi alla quantificazione del meta-ateo. Innanzitutto, in materia religiosa si tollerano affermazioni che in altri contesti ci lascerebbero perplessi...

... were the claims about a supernatural entity who loves, commands, scolds, forgives, etc., to be encountered in a fashion removed from the rich, "respectable" aesthetic and cultural traditions in which they are standardly presented, they would be widely regarded as psychotic... think about what you would make of someone -again in any other context- who said they could really change wine into blood, or bread into flesh,...

Inoltre, in materia religiosa diamo troppa importanza a certi testi. In nessun altro ambito della conoscenza facciamo lo stesso...

... Many of these otherwise outlandish religious claims derive an air of legitimacy, of course, from their reliance on a specific set of usually archaic texts, whose claims are presented dogmatically... The texts standardly serves as the sole basis for various claims...

Scienza e senso comune procedono altrimenti.

Il ruolo dell'evidenza, poi, sembrerebbe marginale in queste questioni...

... absence of evidence, especially when you look for it, becomes evidence of absence, and most people know this, which is one good reason they have for not believing in fairies or little green men controlling us from Mars...

La fede non sembra interagire all'emergere di dettagli differenti nella ricerca, quasi che le due cose  siano scollegate...

... religious claims are oddly detail-resistant. Perhaps the most dramatic cases are the claims about creation...

Persino i teologi più raffinati  non sembrano molto interessati al mondo e ai suoi dettagli. Magari fanno leva su alcuni di essi ma non seguono passo passo la ricerca tarando di volta in volta la loro fede...

... Of course, theologians do discuss details. As I mentioned, I'm not a scholar of theology, however, I'm willing to wager that few of the details they discuss are of the evidential sort that we ordinarily expect of ordinary claims about the world, i.e. claims that link the theological to crucial data...

Reazioni comuni all'evidenza scomoda: 1) passare a significati simbolici 2) appellarsi al mistero e 3) minimizzare (la religione si occupa d'altro)...

... Indeed, I find there are three standard reactions: either the claims are not to be understood literally (in which case, fine: they are not literally believed); or they appeal to "mystery" (to which I will return shortly); but more often they simply giggle or make some other indication that I can't possibly be asking these questions seriously. The questions are regarded as somehow inappropriate....

Il disinteresse per i dettagli instituisce un parallelo imbarazzante con la fiction...

... this resistence to detail is strikingly similar to the same resistence one encounters in dealing with fiction. It seems as silly to ask the kind of detailed questions about God as it does for someone to ask for details about fictional characters, e.g.: What did Hamlet have for breakfast?...

Si rinvia troppo spesso alla dimensione simbolica del linguaggio, una dimensione dove la vaghezza spande nebbia ovunque. Il caso dell'espiazione dei nostri peccati da parte di Gesù...

... Take for example the tremendously moving story of the betrayal and crucifixion of Jesus, and ask yourself whether, were we actually trying to achieve justice in the world, his "dying for our sins" would be even remotely appropriate... supposing that this kind of proxy atonement did make sense, the question should certainly arise in the specific case of Jesus whether He the actually did suffer enough! I don't mean to say that His betrayal and crucifixion weren't pretty awful; but can they really "balance" all the horror of Ghenghis Kahn, WWII, the Gulag, or what death squads routinely do to their victims in Latin America? These are crucifixions multiplied tens of millions fold... Mere symbols, after all, needn't share the magnitudes of what they symbolize....

Troppo frequenti, poi, gli appelli al mistero...

... Confronted with many of the above oddities, many theists claim God is a "mystery" --indeed, I once heard a famous convert, Malcolm Muggeridge, claim "mystery" as his reason for believing!...

Nella vita comune il mistero non ci induce a molti atti di fede...

... Imagine the police arresting you merely because it's a "mystery" how you could have murdered Smith! Just so...

Poi ci sono i comportamenti: perché tanto dolore per la morte di un figlio o di un amico s'è si crede seriamente nell'al di là?...

... People's reactions and behavior --for example, grief, mourning at a friend's death-- do not seem seriously affected by the claimed prospects of a Hereafter....

Oppure: perché ci si oppone ad un controllo scientifico sull'efficacia delle preghiere petitorie quando si crede fermamente che esista?...

... Or consider petitionary prayer: why aren't people who believe in it disposed to have the National Institute of Health do a controlled study (say, of the different sorts of prayer) as they would were they interested in the claim whether soy beans cure cancer (5) And, in any case, why do none of them expect prayer to cure wooden legs?...

A volte i teisti eludono le questioni fondamentali limitandosi a considerare la credenza religiosa come una credenza di base lecita da un punto di vista epistemologico: del resto non possiamo nemmeno sapere se la vita sia sogno o meno!? Ci occorre una credenza...

... There is a small industry of efforts in certain philosophical circles to show that religious belief is no worse off than our beliefs about the existence of the external world or other minds....

Ma laddove c'è un disaccordo ci vuole ben altro...

... Any defense of religious knowledge would need to present a theory that meets both of these demands, and, for some of the reasons I've sketched, it is difficult to see how it could do so, whether or not it's "foundational." In particular, the question is not whether there are or aren't "basic" or foundational beliefs, but why on earth anyone should think that belief in the existence of anything with the extravagant implications of God should figure among them...

L'appello alla fede nello stile di Tertulliano e Kirkegaard non può essere visto che come una forma di resa da parte di chi intende discutere nel merito...

... Indeed, most religious people readily recognize the failure of evidence but then go on to claim that religious beliefs are matters of "faith,"...

COMMENTO PERSONALE

Molti di questi "indizi" di meta-ateismo mi appaiono poco convincenti (inutile qui offrire la replica). Altri, colpiscono più nel segno, come il cattivo rapporto tra l'uomo di  fede e le evidenze naturali. Sia come sia, quella che trovo convincente è la tesi di fondo: molti "credenti" non credono. Certo, anche per quanto appena detto, l'avrei supportata diversamente, puntando più su una base esperienziale. Esempio: molti credenti ricercano “comunità” più che “verità”, dopodiché, autoingannarsi sulla verità diventa molto più  facile.

Ma forse l'essere dei "meta-non-credenti" è vero per  tutte le sfere del sapere sull'uomo, si tratta di una dinamica naturale: l'80% della popolazione è conformista e la vera lotta sulle idee la fanno i pochi non conformisti. Se prevalgono i "bianchi",  l'80% conformisti andrà con i "bianchi"; se prevalgono i "neri", andrà con i "neri". Ammettiamo che i non conformisti "bianchi" abbiano la meglio e siano il 10% della popolazione: ebbene,  i "bianchi" di domani saranno il 90% della popolazione, un gran successo. Ma i "falsi bianchi" (o "meta-neri") saranno quasi il 90% dei "bianchi"!

A "bianco" e "nero" si può sostituire: religioso, ateo, fascista, comunista, liberale, scientista, vegano, reazionario, progressista, ecologista, femminista, materialista, spiritualista... praticamente tutto.