The Baloney Detective

Titian: Sacrifice of Isaac

First, a few words on Titian’s painting. His Isaac is a child and inexorably evokes our compassion and horror at what is going to be, in the absence of an intervention, a savage death in the hands of his own father.

Our eyes are either riveted at first by the intervening angel and then travel inexorably down to the poor boy who could be looking at us, or they are riveted at first by the kneeling boy in all his innocence and vulnerability and then travel upward along the line of the brutal restraining action of  Abraham’s muscular arm to his upraised sword and to the intervention of the angel.

In contrast to the paintings by Caravaggio and Rembrandt on the same subject, Titian’s Isaac does not seem to know what’s going on. Unlike Rembrandt’s Isaac, he has not been bound. We cannot see the face of Isaac in Rembrandt’s painting, but we can see it in Titian’s painting and this has a powerful impact on us. The impact of Rembrandt’s painting, however, is a function of its powerful depiction of the intervening angel and Abraham’s surprise and awe at this supernatural intervention at a critical moment.

In Caravaggio’s painting, Abraham brutally holds down Isaac by his neck, and we can see the agony in Isaac’s face.  We can also see the torment in Abraham’s face as he turns back to look at the intervening angel who has stayed his arm. Caravaggio’s work boils over with the tension of violence and the inner conflict in Abraham.

The face of Titian’s Isaac is not contorted with pain.  He is not struggling and seems to have no clue about the upraised sword about to come crashing down to end the life in his little body. The innocence and helplessness of Titian’s Isaac, whose condition truly resembles that of an unknowing little lamb about to be slaughtered, powerfully evokes our compassion for that child and horror and outrage at Abraham’s intended action.

I should point out here that in the Genesis (22:1-8) account of this attempted human sacrifice episode, Abraham never reveals his real intention to Isaac.

Bearing the burden of the wood on which he would be sacrificed and walking up the mountain, poor Isaac asks his father “Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”.

Abraham adroitly avoids telling his son the horrible truth and says cryptically “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.”

Abraham’s deception here only accentuates his cruelty toward his son.

Imagine how the Chinese moralist Confucius, with his overriding value of filial piety, would have responded to this story of a father planning to kill his own son!

Second, a quick resolution of the issue of why Abraham’s action is an example of religious madness or irrationality.

Recall that I clarified the concept of irrationality in the previous post in terms of the violation of two common sense principles of rationality: a) a belief must be held if there is evidence for it, and b) a belief must be discarded if it is contradicted by evidence.

Abraham’s behavior is irrational because it is based on an irrational belief that God was speaking to him and commanding him to sacrifice his son. It is an irrational belief because he had no evidence to believe that it was God’s voice.

Indeed, the notion that there could be evidence which would show that it was actually God’s voice is untenable. Even if some miracles accompanied a voice, this would only show that there was a supernatural presence and not necessarily God’s presence. Therefore, there is no way Abraham could have known that God was speaking to him. He merely heard a voice and thought that it was God speaking to him.

And how could the writer of Genesis 22:1-8, who was certainly not Abraham himself, have possibly known that it was God speaking to Abraham given that even Abraham himself could not possibly have known it?

Abraham only believed that it was God speaking to him. And the writer of Genesis 22:1-8, in turn, mistakenly believed that Abraham knew that God was speaking to him. That’s all there is to it.

Since there is no evidence for Abraham’s belief that it was God who spoke to him and commanded him to sacrifice his son, his belief and his consequent behavior are deeply irrational. And since his irrational belief and behavior are a function of his religiousness, this is assuredly a case of religious madness or irrationality.

Third, a final demolition of Wittgenstein’s claim on religious madness: irreligiousness is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition of religious madness or irrationality. This is because irreligiousness  is consistent with the absence of religious madness or irrationality. We can adduce many examples in which there is irreligiousness, but no religious madness or irrationality.

Further, religious madness or irrationality is consistent with the absence of irreligiousness. We can adduce many examples in which there is religious madness or irrationality, but no irreligiousness. Therefore, religious madness or irrationality cannot possibly “spring from” irreligiousness.

Last, and moving on to the central claim of this post, I have shown in the previous post on religious madness that religiousness is a necessary condition of religious madness.

If irreligious tendencies, or lapses into irreligiousness, lead a religious person to descend into religious madness or irrationality, then this can happen only because his or her religiousness exacerbates the psychological and moral conflict over those irreligious tendencies.

There is no question of a non-religious person descending into religious madness or irrationality if there is no conversion at first to religiousness. Thus, religious madness or irrationality is dependent on religiousness.

I now want to show that religiousness is also a sufficient condition for religious madness or irrationality!

What am I saying?

I am saying that to go mad or irrational on religion, all you need is religiousness! If you are seriously religious, then you have already descended into religious irrationality. And the more religious you get, the greater the risk of religious madness as a clinical condition.

Does this shock you? It should!

Nevertheless, it is true.

The reason for my claim is simple: all religiousness is irrational!

Does this shock you? It should!

Nevertheless, it is true.

The essence of all religion is supernaturalism. Take that away and all these religions will collapse like houses of cards.

By “supernaturalism”, I mean the belief in processes, events, entities, and beings beyond the pale of nature as we know it through our senses and intellect. It also involves the belief that these supernatural processes or entities act on and control nature and its phenomena, processes, and entities.

What makes these processes, events, and entities postulated by supernaturalism “beyond the pale of nature” is that they are not normally perceived through our senses in the way we perceive trees, rocks, animals, humans, etc. They are also not subject to the laws of nature.

It may seem as though Buddhism and Confucianism are exceptions to my claim that the essence of all religion is supernaturalism, but I don’t think so.

“Enlightenment”  in Buddhism is not an event subject to the chain of causality in nature. Therefore, it is essentially a supernatural event. Buddhism is also replete with beliefs concerning supernatural worlds or “lokas” and various sorts of supernatural entities such as “Asura” or demon, “Deva” or god, “Preta” or “hungry ghost” and so on.

Confucius believed in “the Mandate of Heaven”, a supernatural order governing the vagaries or vicissitudes of terrestrial life. Many of the rituals countenanced and advocated by Confucianism rest on supernaturalism, e.g., belief in ancestral spirits and the importance of honoring them.

Supernaturalism violates the two central principles of common sense rationality I described earlier. There is no evidence for supernaturalism and there is good evidence against it. Hence, supernaturalism, or the belief in supernatural forces, beings, etc.,  is irrational.

I will be examining  this topic in two subsequent posts. For now, I will say that the only convincing evidence for supernaturalism would be the occurrence of miracles, blatant violations of laws of nature in the absence of attenuating or extenuating conditions, in response to prayers or “petitions” seeking some sort of intervention in the natural course of events.

Since there are no such miracles, supernaturalism is false.

And, therefore, there is falsity or falsehood in the very essence of religion. To espouse false beliefs and practices based on such false beliefs in the face of available evidence clearly showing that falsity is irrational.

Hence, all religiousness is irrational.

It follows that the more religious you are, the more irrational you become. And the more this religiousness pervades your life, the more the scope or range of irrationality in your life. With this increase in the scope or range of irrationality in your life, the closer you get to insanity or lunacy.

Of course, you can live with a seriously divided rationality: common sense for money matters and religiousness on the weekend confined to the synagogue, church, mosque, temple, or “sangha”. But this division also carries its own risks of increasing the fissures in the mind.

Further, the imperatives of religiousness are imperialist in their nature. They inexorably tend to subsume more and more of one’s inner and outer life. Hence, it is but a matter of time before their scope or range extends to the whole of one’s life with the predictable consequence of increasing irrationality and the risk of impending insanity or lunacy.

Rembrandt: The Sacrifice of Isaac

Let us take another look at Wittgenstein’s arresting remark, in Culture and Value, that religion as madness, or religious madness (of which Abraham’s preparation to sacrifice his son Isaac is a paradigm example) springs from irreligiousness.

The obvious questions one must ask Wittgenstein are:  What do you mean by “religion as madness”? And what do you mean by “irreligiousness”?

“Religion as madness” can only mean “religious madness” or “religiousness gone mad”. And what do these expressions mean? That depends on what we mean by “madness” in the first place.

The word “mad” is ambiguous. It can mean a clinical condition of insanity or lunacy, or intense anger, or an intense desire for something, or pronounced or marked irrationality. “He is mad at her selfishness.”,  “She is mad about teas from Mariage Frères.”, and “Did you really go 100 mph on that freeway? That was madness!” express these different senses of “mad”.

Only the first and last senses of “mad” -  “mad” in the sense of a clinical condition of lunacy and “mad” in the sense of pronounced or marked irrationality -  are relevant in the context of Wittgenstein’s remark.

Religious madness can be or can become a clinical condition of insanity or lunacy, but usually it takes the form of pronounced or marked irrationality in belief, emotion, and behavior  in the guise or form of religiousness. Thus, I construe  “religious madness” as referring to a pronounced or marked condition of irrationality in belief, emotion, and behavior  in the forms of religiousness.

And what makes a belief, emotion, or behavior irrational?

I maintain that irrationality is in its essence a violation or abrogation of principles of common sense. There are two central principles of common sense which are at the core of rationality: a) A belief must be held only if there is evidence for it, and b) A belief must be rejected if there is evidence against it.

Irrationality, therefore, consists in the violation of these two basic principles of (common sense) rationality. An irrational belief is  a belief for which there is no evidence and/or against which there is evidence.  An irrational emotion is an emotion based on an irrational belief. And an irrational behavior is behavior based on an irrational belief directly, or indirectly by being driven by an irrational emotion.

Insanity or lunacy is characterized by a persistent state of  pronounced irrationality in belief, emotion, and behavior, but it is important to consider the fact that there are temporary or recurrent states or bouts of irrationality in belief, emotion, and behavior.

Irrationality is also a matter of extent or range. One’s irrationality can be confined to a specific domain or area of belief, emotion, and behavior, or it can extend to and encompass several domains of belief, emotion, and behavior.

The latter condition verges on clinical  lunacy or insanity, but it is a fact of human nature that one can be eminently rational in one area  or domain and succumb to irrationality in another domain.

Isaac Newton’s rationality in the realm of physics was unparalleled, but he was irrational in his approach to alchemy and the Bible and wasted his precious genius, time, and energy in pursuing his alchemical and Biblical “studies”. If this was true of Newton, one can only speculate on the condition of lesser mortals!

Think of all those Indian scientists who, at the end of a day’s rigorous scientific work in their prestigious institutions, took off their white coats and headed toward the ashram of the late “Satya” Sai Baba and fell for his standard repertoire of a magician’s tricks!

Think of some of the scientists in the West who suspended elementary standards of testing and  fell for Uri Geller’s stunts with bending metal through “mind power” alone!

What a curious division in a single mind between its application of  rigorous rationality in one domain and its abrogation of it in another domain!

Humans are prone to irrationality not only in the usual sense of doing something contrary to their knowledge, but also, and more dangerously, in the sense of believing something contrary to their knowledge.

What’s all this got to do with Wittgenstein’s remark?

It has a bearing on it in that it helps to dispel two errors pertaining to talk of “religion as madness” or religious madness: a) the error of thinking that “religion as madness” or “religious madness” invariably or essentially refers to the clinical condition of insanity or lunacy, and b) the error of thinking that “religion as madness”, or religious irrationality, implies irrationality in all other non-religious domains of one’s life, that to ascribe religious irrationality to someone implies that the person cannot hold any rational beliefs at all.

In talking of “religion as madness”, or religious madness, or religious irrationality, we are not talking, except in unusual cases, of madness or irrationality in the clinical terms of insanity or lunacy. We are simply talking of pronounced or marked irrationality of belief, emotion, and behavior manifested in the forms of religiousness.

Further,  in talking of “religion as madness” in the sense of pronounced or marked irrationality of belief, emotion, and behavior manifested in terms of religiousness, we are not suggesting that this form of  irrationality must necessarily permeate the whole of one’s life.

The commonplace  fact of division in the human mind and psyche between rigorous rationality in one domain or area and even egregious irrationality in another area blocks that suggestion. The same person can harbor or hold highly rational beliefs on some matters and highly irrational beliefs on other  matters. So, the fact that a person has succumbed to religious irrationality does not imply that they cannot harbor any rational beliefs at all about other matters.

It also works in the other direction. From the fact that a person holds rational beliefs in one domain, it certainly does not follow that he or she must be free from religious irrationality or irrational religious beliefs.

Given the universal propensity for “divided rationality”, the fact that a person holds rational beliefs in one domain does not even make it probable that he or she is free from religious irrationality.

Hence, any inference from the fact that a person is rational in some domain to the conclusion that  he or she is likely to be rational in another domain is illogical.

This throws out of the window an argument made on behalf of some claimants to religious experience: that we should consider their “verbal testimony” on their experiences, their claims on their religious experiences, to be reliable because those claimants are rational in some other, non-religious, domain. This argument is afflicted by non sequitur.

Religious irrationality can vary in its range or extent depending on the length of the leash of common sense with which an individual restrains his or her religiousness. The longer the length of that leash, the less constrained  one’s religiousness and, naturally, the greater the extent of religious irrationality. The greater the extent or reach of  religious irrationality, the greater the risk of “religion as madness” in the clinical terms of lunacy or insanity.

In other words, religious irrationality waxes or wanes in strength and begins to permeate one’s life in inverse proportion to the dominance of common sense. The more one regulates one’s life by common sense, the less the extent of one’s religious irrationality and the strength of its influence.

The second question pertaining to Wittgenstein’s remark was: What could he have meant by “irreligiousness”?

There is overwhelming evidence, on the basis of his published remarks and reported conversations with him by his close friends and students, that Wittgenstein held a view of religion which accorded central place in a religious life to an acute consciousness of the defects of one’s character (“People are religious to the extent that they believe themselves to be not so much imperfect, as ill. Any man who is half-way decent will think himself  extremely imperfect, but a religious man thinks himself wretched.” in Culture and Value), unwavering commitment to one’s religion, and ethical practice stemming from that commitment.

Therefore, he could have only meant by “irreligiousness” a lack of awareness of, or serious reflection on, the defects of one’s character, a lack of commitment to one’s religion,  and a lack of ethical practice stemming from that commitment.

Now, given my clarifications of “religion as madness” and “irreligiousness” in Wittgenstein’s remark, how could “religion as madness” or religious irrationality, i.e., irrationality in belief, emotion, and behavior  in the forms of religiousness, possibly spring from “irreligiousness” in Wittgenstein’s own sense of this term?

It is obvious that one would have to be religious in the first place to succumb to “religion as madness” or religious irrationality.  How then can there even be a possibility of “religion as madness” springing from “irreligiousness”?

One could attempt to render Wittgenstein’s remark coherent by saying something like this on its behalf: a person who is afflicted by “irreligiousness”, let’s say in the form of allowing some vices to go unchecked,  turns to religion to assuage a guilty conscience or alleviate her moral conflict. But she fails to resolve this moral conflict and turns increasingly to religion. Eventually, the lack of resolution of the moral conflict over her vices results in  “religion as madness”, or religious irrationality.

Does this make Wittgenstein’s remark coherent?

I don’t think so for the obvious reason that this person would already be “religious” in Wittgenstein’s sense of that word if she were to experience any significant moral conflict over her vices. To be in a state of moral conflict over one’s vices already involves an element of what Wittgenstein would consider to be essential to religiousness, i.e., an acute consciousness of the defects of one’s character, or one’s “illness” and “wretchedness”, to use Wittgenstein’s “Kierkegaardian” Christian vocabulary.

Note also that her turn toward religiousness is what exacerbates her moral conflict, her sense of  her own “sin”, “illness”, and “wretchedness”. Without her turn toward religiousness, the vices would not be interpreted by her as evidence of her “illness” and “wretchedness”.

Hence, if this person were to succumb to “religion as madness” or religious irrationality, it would actually be an instance of “religion as madness” springing from religiousness!

Alternatively, one could  attempt to render Wittgenstein’s remark coherent by saying that a religious person can suffer acutely from any lapses  into “irreligiousness” and that this can eventually lead him or her into the condition of “religion as madness” or religious irrationality. Thus, irreligiousness can lead to “religion as madness” or religious irrationality.

But, clearly, this is really a case of “religion as madness” springing from religiousness rather than irreligiousness. It is her preexisting religiousness which exacerbates her conflict and suffering at any lapse into irreligiousness. The notion that one has “lapsed into irreligiousness” can only arise in a religious person.  She would not even be conscious of her “lapses into irreligiousness” if she wasn’t very religious in the first place.  And to suffer acutely from one’s perception that one has lapsed into “irreligiousness” implies a very high degree of religiousness.

Since these attempts fail to render coherent Wittgenstein’s remark that “Religion as madness is a madness springing from irreligiousness.“, I conclude, again, that it is a piece of baloney and that we should adhere to the plain truth that the roots of religion as madness or religious irrationality lie squarely and deeply in the bog of religiousness itself.

Caravaggio: The Sacrifice of Isaac

As I have argued in the previous post “The Familiar Faces of  Faith”, contrary to Wittgenstein who remarked that “Religion as madness is a madness springing from irreligiousness.” (“Religion als Wahnsinn ist Wahnsinn aus Irreligiosität ” in Culture and Value), the truth is that religion as madness, or religious madness, is a madness which springs from religiousness itself, the inherently conflicted, tormented, and inwardly and outwardly violent striving to be truly religious.

I will repeat here my main criticism of Wittgenstein’s remark: “In fact, not only is Wittgenstein’s suggestion that irreligiousness is the cause of religious madness implausible, it is also a piece of baloney because it contradicts an obvious truth! It is obvious that if we have a case of religion as madness, or religious madness, or religiousness gone mad, it must have something essentially to do with religiousness. Otherwise, it would simply be madness and not particularly a case of religious madness. So, in its very nature, religion as madness, or religious madness,  must have its roots in religiousness.”

I am very far from suggesting or implying that it was Caravaggio’s intention to do so (But it is correct to say that he wanted to communicate a truth about the violence of Abraham’s action. Representations of acts of violence are an integral part of his art,  and, perhaps, have something to do with his temperamental propensity for violence.), but nothing shows this truth better than his masterpiece The Sacrifice of Isaac.

The self-inflicted torment, springing squarely from his religious madness, in the visage of a father determined to savagely sacrifice his beloved son should give us more than a pause for reflection on religious madness.

And I am not really impressed with the intervening Angel.  He is no paragon of compassion since he points to the equally innocent ram as the alternative sacrificial victim!

I can think of no other picture than this, one of the 14 “black paintings” Goya created in his mid-seventies, the “Pilgrimage to San Isidro” depicting a procession of the faithful pilgrims to the hermitage of St. Isidore in Madrid, Spain, which shows the true face of religious faith.

“The face is the index of the soul.” Indeed!

In a remarkable set of remarks from the notebooks of the twentieth century Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, collected together and posthumously published with the title “Culture and Value“, we find an entry in 1931:  “Religion as madness is a madness springing from irreligiousness.” (“Religion als Wahnsinn ist Wahnsinn aus Irreligiosität”)

This remark suggests that religious madness, or madness manifested in religious forms, is a madness which springs really from an absence of religiousness, from the lack of a truly religious spirit,  and probably from a life marred by vices cloaked in the mantle of religiousness.

But there is an obvious problem in Wittgenstein’s remark. If the cause is “irreligiousness” or lack of religiousness, how can the effect take the specific form of religious madness? How can “irreligiousness” lead to religious madness? Rather, it would make sense to think that religious madness must be traced back to its religious roots, to religiousness itself.

In fact, not only is Wittgenstein’s suggestion that irreligiousness is the cause of religious madness implausible, it is also a piece of baloney because it contradicts an obvious truth!

It is obvious that if we have a case of religion as madness, or religious madness, or religiousness gone mad, it must have something essentially to do with religiousness. Otherwise, it would simply be madness and not particularly a case of religious madness. So, in its very nature, religion as madness, or religious madness,  must have its roots in religiousness.

If one’s religiousness is merely a matter of paying lip service to religious dogmas, or armchair philosophizing about its imagined merits, then there is really no threat to one’s sanity. But there is an upheaval the moment one takes religiousness seriously and strives earnestly to be religious.

Just think of the travails of taking seriously the command of Jesus of Nazareth to abandon everything and follow his course or path! Ponder the praxis of becoming “like unto children” to qualify for entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven! Reflect on the ramifications of striving to overcome all desires in order to attain Nirvana! Contemplate the consequences of cultivating total detachment to attain the goal of liberation in Hindu yoga! Do this and you will understand why I hold that religious madness springs actually  from the striving to be truly religious.

Religion as madness is invariably a madness springing from an excess of religiousness,  from an excess of “enthusiasm”, as the Scottish philosopher David Hume would have called it, which the struggle for authentic religiousness always breeds in one form or another,  from the self-inflicted tortures of trying to live in accordance with the irrational imperatives or ideals of  one’s “faith”, and from the atrophy of reason and discernment such obedience to the dictates of  one’s “faith” invariably engenders in human beings.

You only need to look at the faces of the pilgrims to San Isidro in Goya’s dark masterpiece to know this truth!

Goya: Aquellos Polvos

Do you see what happens when the real dunces, the ones doing the “judging” in this print from Goya’s Los Caprichos series, rule the day?