Improve your life through a scientific approach to normative morality, and the power of prayer.
What’s the most overrated virtue? Patient self-describedHumility? If you’re a Christopher Hitchens fan, a Sam Harris aficionado, or a self described atheist, you probably answered “Faith: the willingness to accept claims without evidence.”
Sadly, it is sometimes necessary to rely on claims we can’t personally verify, but how the hell is that a plus? I submit that, since understanding is better than faith and the two cannot coexist, faith is a vice, because it results from the absence of a virtue.
In light of the above, I’d like to advocate, rather than simply prescribe the following method of improving your life, socially, financially and physically:
As as you wake up every morning, repeat the following phrase: “I am a child of God! Made in His image, and I can do all things through Christ, who gives me strength!” I got this idea from Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, founder of Guidepost Magazine, The Crystal Cathedral, and boyhood Pastor of current President Donald Trump. It’s a valuable component of a miraculous method of self improvement that Peale says “Works Wonders”. I especially recommend it to atheists like myself since we won’t have to go through the trouble of rewording it to suit our religious backgrounds.
Please, don’t be a jerk and take this on faith, evaluate my argument.
Peal’s affirmation has three parts, starting with “I am a child of God!” This isn’t a promising start, because it immediately provokes the response. “Wow, what a selfish, narcissistic thing to say! And it’s not even true! You’re lying to yourself!” This is pretty close to a moral checkmate. Even a star athlete or a billionaire would get laughed at if they attributed their success to being a demigod. It seems even more outrageous to encourage everybody, including anonymous alcoholics to claim to be a demigod. Additionally, God doesn’t exist, and non-existence precludes children.
Strictly speaking, you’re right on both points, and I think that deep down most people agree with you. But, what does Sam Harris have to say on Proposition: “I am a child of God.”
In his book “The Moral Landscape” Sam Harris, espouses the controversial belief that “The worst possible suffering for everybody” is bad, and that all movements away from that state are “good”. Sam‘s critics ridicule his claim by correctly pointing out that he can’t prove it. But, I suspect that the real source of the anger is that the belief is extremely unpopular. Sam’s practically claiming to be a demigod.
If suffering for sentient beings were inherently bad, then the pursuit of goodness would be a struggle to use all the wisdom and resources at our disposal to achieve the “the best possible good for everyone”. Science and reason would obviously become the most powerful tools available to us in our moral struggle, and we’d be able to tell if our attempts were working using objective measurements.
Viewed though that lens, the only rational purpose of the universe would be to achieve a state where anyone capable of reciting the phrase “I am a child of God.” would live in a perpetual state of maximum happiness and fulfillment. Clearly, This a very unpopular idea in a society where people’s unwillingness to take the prescription medication they’ve already paid for, causes 330 billion dollars of unnecessary medical expenses every year. Does a human being loses their transplant kidney due to prescription non-compliance, because they think that their happiness has inherent value? We punish ourselves all the time, and it’s annoying when Harris and Peale criticize our lifestyle choices.
Still, there must be a reason why setting a homeless man on fire is so qualitatively different than burning a log. Maybe Sam Harris is right and humans are children of God, maybe we do deserve love, and perhaps the mere fact of our suffering damages the universe by making it a worse place. Try living like you believe that and see if improves your health.
Proposition 2. I am a child of God. Made in His image!
The claim that human beings are made in the image of God is even easier to refute, than the idea that we are some how “His children”. It’s indisputable, that we evolved in the same way as all other forms of life, as a result of random mutations being propagated more or less depending on how they interacted with environmental conditions.
Moreover, our bodies are far from perfect, and contain many defective features that would never have been included by any designer, let alone an omnipotent one. “The adrenal glands are too big, and the frontal lobes are too small.” as Christopher Hitchens liked to say. Or as I like to say, “Why would an omnipotent being need a digestive system and why would an omniscient being need eyes?” It’s all beside the point since there’s no reason to think that God exists, and every reason to think we made Him up.
In order to think clearly about this, it’s important to notice what attributes God does have, as a fictional character. I think it’s fair to say, that he (or she goddammit) is an omnipotent all powerful creator of the universe. In contrast, human beings are sentient apes, who can barely influence the natural world at all, and only interact with the tiny part of the universe that our brains are capable of simulating. We control nothing but our own perspectives and even our most intentional actions are the result of natural processes which are either random or deterministic.
It’s as hard to find freewill, in a rational assessment of a human being as it is to find God in a rational assessment of the Universe. On the other hand, it’s fun to compare Sam Harris and Norman Vincent Peale, so why don’t we continue to investigate how similar their doctrines are by using one to restate the other.
Sam Harris is famous for reminding us that the Universe we know is created by our brains. The simulated universe inside of us is the only one we have access to. This is true to such an extent that the reality of our existence would not be increased or lessened if our world were the result of a computer simulation in another universe, or simply a dream in the mind of some other organism. If we accept Sam’s blend of cognitive science and philosophy, the universe we create is both, ultimately real, and demonstrably an illusion. We are not quite a cool as God, but we are clearly doing the same thing.
We are “Made in His image.” because as Sam says, “It’s impossible to be mistaken about being conscious.”, “The impression that one exists is sufficient proof of one’s own existence.”, and we should be happy to exist because as Sam puts it “We are the locus of the only principle that gives meaning to the universe.” That’s an idea worth contemplating at least once a day.
Proposition 3: “I can do all things through Christ! Who gives me strength!”
This is the most innovative part of the Harris/Peale approach to consciousness and morality. It’s a bold affirmation of the enlightenment principle that the human condition can be improved through progress, and it also makes a powerful case for the role of science in morality.
Evolution has burdened the human mind with many design flaws. One minor flaw is our tendency to assign agency inappropriately, as in my last sentence. Another more subtle and therefor more serious flaw, is our tendency to conflate problems and solutions. This flawed way of thinking is responsible for unimaginable suffering all over the world and its recognition and suppression is a precondition to human salvation.
Christ’s claim to redeem the sins of other people through his own punishment, doesn’t make any sense. However, moral intuition is simply a product of evolution and no less fallible than our intuitions about nature. I submit that vicarious atonement is nonsensical for the same reason it doesn’t make any sense that an apple and a watermelon hit the ground together when dropped from the same height. Our sense of morality evolved to solve problems on a tiny scale and can’t be expected to intuitively grasp a phenomena as enormous as Christ’s redemptive sacrifice. When you look out your window, the world looks flat because you’re short. Solving a problem by addressing its cause might work for killing gophers, but it’s a naive strategy for addressing problems on a societal scale.
Sam claims science is useful for “determining which patterns of thought and behavior humans actually should follow”. Science provides the best tools for determining what circumstances are sub-optimal and also the best tools for identifying actions that will increase human flourishing. This type of dispassionate analysis guides us towards acting rationally, rather than attempting to redistribute resources based on assigned blame. However, as we move away from the simple problems of food and shelter and take on more complex problems, the mere fact that we are in possession of scientific tools will not be enough. Left unchecked we will simply abuse the tools of science to win arguments about who should bear the costs of eliminating problems, instead of innovating solutions that solve problems by introducing new technologies and strategies an existing situation.
In order to make progress on the “moral landscape” we need to become morally and emotionally comfortable with foolish and greedy people being redeemed by the brilliant innovations of highly intelligent altruists. The most moral future, is one where we can eat steak without abusing animals, light our houses without polluting the environment, and own guns without shooting each other. With the proper humility, all our sins will be redeemed through wisdom greater than our own.
So why remind yourself each day, that “you can do all things through Christ.”? Jesus’s example gives you the courage to look at the problems around you, safe in the knowledge that these problems have innumerable solutions you haven’t thought of yet. Christ’s redemptive brand of scientific optimism allows you to see what the future could be, and use the power of your reason to move towards it. That’s the kind of strength you want to start your day with.