The earth encircled by religions!

Readers of this blog may have been puzzled by the subtitle of my new blog on Ramalingam: “The Way of Pure and True Theism”. This implies a distinction between pure and true theism, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, impure and false theism.

What is this distinction?

This distinction is based on the fact that although the true notion that an entity, X , exists could be shared by two or more views, these views can differ from each other in their conceptions of X, or in their claims about the nature or attributes of X. And, of course, some of these conceptions or claims may be true and others false.

Hence, the fact that two or more views share a true belief in the existence of X does not imply that they must all have equally true conceptions or beliefs pertaining to the nature or attributes of X.

Thus, for example, the fact that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all share the true notion that God exists is perfectly consistent with the possibility that they have different and conflicting conceptions of the nature of God.  Indeed, all this is no mere possibility, but an actuality.

Since these religions have some mutually conflicting conceptions of the nature or attributes of God or ultimate reality, it follows, by virtue of the logic of contradiction, that all these conflicting conceptions cannot be equally true of God. It further follows from this truth that some of these conceptions of God must be false.

Now, each of these “world religions”, namely, Judaism, or Christianity, or Islam, considered individually as a system of beliefs and practices, also contains conflicting conceptions or claims on the nature of God.  And, obviously, these conflicting conceptions or claims within a single religion cannot all be equally true. Some of them must be false.

The logic of conjunction has an interesting implication for systems of beliefs or claims constituted by the conjunction of true and false statements.

It is a logical truth that the conjunction of a false and true statement is false!

For example, if it is raining, but not snowing, then the conjunction “It is raining and it is snowing” is false since one of the conjoined statements is false.

A conjunction of statements is true if and only if all of the conjoined statements are true.

One belief or claim does not a religion make! To adhere to a religion is to embrace, at least, a system of beliefs, or a conjunction of statements, or claims, central to and constitutive of that religion’s conception of ultimate reality.

It follows from the logic of conjunction that even if one of the conjoined beliefs, statements, or claims is false, the whole system or conjunction of beliefs, statements, or claims is false.

Hence, even if one belief, statement, or claim in the conjunction of beliefs, statements, or claims , on the nature of God or ultimate reality, which constitutes Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, or any other religion, is false, the whole system or conjunction of statements must, logically, be considered false.

Of course, this does not imply that there are no true statements in the system or conjunction of statements, but that as long as there is even one false statement in it, the conjunction of statements is false.

Thus, false theism is any form of theism such that the conjunction of its constitutive claims about the nature or attributes of God is false because one or more of the conjoined statements is false. 

False theism is also impure theism, i.e., a corrupt form of theism which contains false claims on the nature or attributes of God. This is not undermined by the fact, if it is a fact, that an instance of this form of theism contains some or many true claims on the nature or attributes of God.

True theism, by contrast, consists only of true claims on the nature or attributes of God. Since there is no admixture in it of true and false claims on the nature or attributes of God, true theism is also pure theism.

All this sheds light on an important verse in Ramalingam’s magnum opus in the Tamil language, ARUTPERUMJOTHI AGAVAL or “Verses On The Immense Light Of Compassion”:

சாதியு மதமுஞ் சமயமும் பொய்யென
ஆதியி லுணர்த்திய வருட்பெருஞ் ஜோதி (VERSES 211 – 212)

“ARUTPERUMJOTHI made me perceive early in my life that சாதி (caste), சமயம் (religion), and மதம் (the extant theistic or atheistic philosophical, metaphysical, or theological systems of Vedanta, Siddhanta, Lokayata or materialism, Buddhism, Jainism, etc) were பொய் or false.”

What does he mean by the claim that caste, religion, and the extant theological, or metaphysical, or philosophical systems are false?

In light of the analysis of “false theism” offered earlier, this radical declaration by Ramalingam (he composed these verses in 1872 – 73 in an obscure hamlet in Tamilnadu, South India!) could only mean the following:

A. Casteism or purported justifications of caste divisions, religions, and the extant theistic or atheistic metaphysical, philosophical, or theological systems of Vedanta, Siddhanta, Lokayata (materialism), Buddhism, Jainism, etc., contain central claims which are false.

And, therefore, by virtue of the logic of conjunction:

B. The systems or conjunctions of claims constituting casteism, religions, and the extant theistic or atheistic metaphysical or theological systems of Vedanta, Siddhanta, Lokayata or materialism, Buddhism, Jainism, etc., are false.

Kunstformen der Natur: An Exuberance of Design?

At the outset, I want to emphasize that I am not denying the reality of evolution. What I want to show is that any inference from the mere fact of evolution to the denial of the existence of a supreme designer, and/or a plurality of designers, is a non sequitur.

In other words, the argument stated as follows is invalid:

We can account for the diverse forms and structures of living beings in terms of processes of evolution. Therefore, there is no supreme designer, and/or  a plurality of designers, of those diverse forms and structures of living beings.

Compare the following argument:

We can account for the workings of a computer in terms of the structure and processes of its hardware and software. Therefore, there is no chief designer, and/or a plurality of designers, of the computer.

At the very least, the conclusion does not follow from the premises!

The fact that we can account for the workings of the computer in terms of the structure and processes of its hardware and software is completely consistent with the existence of a chief designer, and/or a plurality of designers, who have conceived and brought it about that the computer has that hardware and software!

Or consider this argument:

We can account for the 9/11 collapse of the Twin Towers in New York in terms of causal processes resulting from damage to the structural integrity of those buildings. Therefore, there is no reason to refer to intelligent agency in explaining the collapse of those buildings.

Even if the premise is true, the conclusion does not follow. The truth of the premise is consistent with the fact that intelligent agency initiated those causal processes by bringing about the damage to the structural integrity of those buildings, of course,  by flying airplanes into them!

In just the same way, the fact that we can account for the diverse forms and structures of living beings in terms of evolution is perfectly consistent with the fact that the process of evolution was initiated and regulated by a supreme designer and/or a plurality of designers, or that a supreme designer and/or a plurality of designers brought about the existence of diverse forms of life by means of a process we imperfectly understand and dub “evolution”.

Hence, again, the inference from the fact of evolution to the denial of the existence of a supreme designer and/or plurality of designers is an invalid one.

All this is a function of a simple truth: explanation in terms of structure, function, or process, is perfectly consistent with the fact that intelligent agency has initiated and governed that process, or designed and brought about the existence of that structure, or shaped that function.

Dear Reader,

Welcome to my blog “The Baloney Detective”.

Until recently, a great deal of the contents of this blog was shaped by my adherence to naturalism. This is no longer the case since I have now embraced Suddha Sanmargam, or the path of pure and true theism, and its Weltanschauung, envisioned and established by the great 19th century Tamil mystic and poet Chidambaram Ramalingam (1823 – 1874). I have now devoted a separate blog to the project of clarification and analysis of Suddha Sanmargam at

http://thewayoftruetheism.wordpress.com

“The Baloney Detective” will now focus on “baloney detection” in the context of my new project of exposition, reconstruction, analysis, and defense of Suddha Sanmargam.

What this means for this blog can be made clear by invoking Ramalingam’s thesis that the prevalent fragmented sectarian religious dogmas, the divisive values and practices of the extant religious traditions, false theistic views, false theologies, false values or “disvalues”, and false philosophical doctrines or theories, are the main obstacles to the realization of the great truths and ideals of Suddha Sanmargam: unitive experience and knowledge of ultimate reality in the form of ARUTPERUMJOTHI, or the being who is an IMMENSE LIGHT OF COMPASSION, the practice of the ethic of compassion for all sentient beings, the blossoming of a sense of soul-kinship with all sentient beings, the practice of vegetarianism, non-killing, the abolition of torture, the abolition of discrimination, division, and conflict based on race, gender, social group, class, nationality, and species membership, the care of the body in order to achieve optimal health and extension of longevity, and the attainment of the “Great Life Without Death”, a form of embodied life free from the afflictions of suffering, aging, and death.

Thus, my central objective now, in this blog, is to expose baloney in all that opposes the cardinal truths and values of Suddha Sanmargam, the Way of Pure and True Theism.

Yours in Soul-Kinship,

Thill Raghu, Ph.D.

Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430 CE) is a good example of the religious corruption of common sense and higher-order intelligence, the corruption of common sense and higher-order intelligence due to the bewitching influence of irrational religious beliefs!

Many of the strange, or even absurd, questions he raises, e.g., whether Jesus still bears the scars of crucifixion in the palms of his hands, not to mention the “answers” he contrives for them, e.g., that Jesus still bears the scars of crucifixion in the palms of his hands, but that they are faint and not unseemly to look at, bear eloquent testimony to the extent of this corruption.

In reading his Confessions, it is essential to know that he had once founded a school of rhetoric in Carthage! The bewitchment this work can cast on our minds, the sickly obsession with “sin” and the attendant manifestations of self-loathing and even misanthropy, or loathing of humanity, it invariably tends to foster in us,  owe a great deal to the author’s masterly use of rhetoric in the service of Christian dogmas and fanatic moralism.  (Although Augustine mentions, in Books IV and V of his Confessions, that he taught rhetoric or the art of public speaking and disavows that he had any “evil intent” in teaching the art of persuasion, he betrays not even a glimmer of self-reflection or self-questioning as to whether he is using this art in his books to persuade others to accept Christian dogmas even in the face of absence of evidence, or worse, in the face of contrary evidence!)

Let’s start with his claim that babies who have not yet acquired language still feel and display the emotion of envy or jealousy.

Here is the erudite Bishop of Hippo Regius unabashedly “dishing out” baloney on the sins of babies:

“Hear me, O God! How wicked are the sins of men! Men say this and you pity them, because you made man, but you did not make sin in him.  Who can recall to me the sins I committed as a baby? For in your sight no man is free from sin, not even a child who has lived only one day on earth…What sins, then, did I commit when I was a baby myself? Was it a sin to cry when I wanted to feed on the breast?

I have myself seen jealousy in a baby and know what it means. He was not old enough to talk, but whenever he saw his foster-brother at the breast, he would grow pale with envy. This much is common knowledge…but surely it cannot be called innocence, when the milk flows in such abundance from its source, to object to a rival desperately in need and depending for his life on this one form of nourishment? Such faults are not small or unimportant…because the same faults are intolerable in older persons.” (Confessions, Book. 1: 7, Penguin Classics)

At the outset, it is worth taking note of two important truths pertaining to the claims in these passages.

First, instead of examining the evidence or the facts pertaining to babies with an unbiased mind, which would only befit a truth seeker, and then forming his conclusions, Augustine merely turns his jaundiced eyes,  jaundiced with the prior belief that no human being, not even a child who has lived only one day on earth, is free from sin, on babies, including, obviously, the baby he is talking about.

Consequently, no “leap of thought”, no arduous intellectual labor, is required to draw the conclusion that baby X, “observed” by Augustine, must be sinful and display the manifestations of that sinfulness, e.g., jealousy. No wonder, then, that Augustine thinks he has “seen jealousy” in that baby!

Thus, contrary to appearances generated by his manipulative rhetoric, he is not presenting any evidence gathered in an unbiased manner on the nature of babies. He has the prior conviction or “faith” that all babies are sinful and merely deduces from this conviction that baby X must have grown “pale with envy” because it turned pale at the sight of his foster-brother at the breast.

We may well be dealing here with an instance of intellectual perversion, the twisting, or concoction, of evidence to suit prior theories or beliefs. Too bad, Augustine did not have the benefit of Sherlock Holmes’ insight that ” It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.” (A Study in Scarlet) Nay, Holmes, it also distorts your perceptions!

At the very least, what we have here is a case of (mis) interpretation of a baby’s facial expression in terms of prior religious beliefs about its sinfulness.

Second, the distinguished Bishop of Hippo Regius does not seem to realize that his portentous and absurd conclusions on the sinfulness of babies contradict the declarations of his Savior Jesus of Nazareth.

In Matthew 19:14, it says that  “Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven”. Further, in Matthew 18:3,  Jesus said  “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”.

Clearly, the import of these remarks by Jesus is that little children are innocent and constitute, in this respect, models for adults aspiring to travel to the final destination of  “the Kingdom of Heaven”.

In the view of Jesus, children are innocent of sin. How, then, could Bishop Augustine bring himself to blatantly contradict the claims of his Savior and assert that even babies who have lived only one day on earth are guilty of sins such as jealousy and the will to inflict harm on  people taking care of them?

Let us now examine whether it is plausible to ascribe or impute jealousy to babies who have not even acquired a language.

Obviously, we need a correct account of jealousy in order to determine whether it makes any sense to ascribe it to babies bereft of language.

Spinoza pointed out in his Ethics (Part III) that envy is not a primitive or simple emotion. It is a compound or complex emotion. It is  a form of hatred constituted by pain at someone’s good fortune and pleasure at that person’s misfortune. As Spinoza put it: “Envy is hatred in so far as it induces a man to be pained by another’s good fortune and to rejoice in another’s evil fortune.” (Ethics, Book III: XXIII) Hence, according to Spinoza, envy is opposed to sympathy whose nature consists in taking pleasure at someone’s good fortune and pain at someone’s misfortune.

Hume pointed out in his Treatise Of Human Nature (Book II: Sec. VIII) that envy arises from comparison of one’s condition with that of another not distant from one’s social station. Hume thinks that a great gulf between one’s condition and that of another, e.g., the case of a peasant and a billionaire, robs jealousy of its force, whereas the proximity of the other person’s condition to one’s own, e.g., the case of the peasant and his neighbor, accentuates the force of jealousy.

Envy arises from the fact that this comparison of my condition with that of another diminishes my sense of some good, e.g., enjoyment, I possess or have. In Hume’s words, “”Envy is excited by some present enjoyment of another, which by comparison diminishes our idea of our own“. (A Treatise Of Human Nature, Book II: Sec. VIII, Penguin Classics)

It should now start to become clear that there is something far-fetched in Augustine’s claim that a baby which has not acquired language is capable of feeling and expressing envy or jealousy at someone’s possession of a good.

Jealousy is a complex attitude. It involves the desire to possess something, X, or to possess it in an ample measure or quantity. It also involves cognitive  processes which yield the knowledge (or, at least,  the belief) that :

a) X is a good worth possessing or worth possessing in an ample measure or quantity,

AND

b) One lacks X or has it only to an insufficient degree,

AND

c) Another person possesses X or possesses it to a great(er) extent or degree than oneself

As a consequence, in a state of jealousy, there is also:

d) Ill-will, or resentment, or hatred, toward that person in possession of X and one wishes that he or she did not possess X, or did not possess it to the extent or degree greater than one’s own possession of X.

Thus, jealousy is a form of ill-will, resentment, or hatred toward those who possess goods which I desire and  which I lack or possess only to an insufficient or inadequate degree. Desire, hatred, pain, and pleasure are all the ingredients which, in a pattern of relationship, constitute jealousy.

Is it, then, plausible to claim that a baby can experience and express jealousy toward another?

If it is plausible to make this claim, then this implies that a baby is capable of comparing its condition with that of another.

But this is absurd since babies have not achieved the cognitive development, constituted to a significant extent by the acquisition and use of language, which would give them the capacity for such comparisons.

Hence, it is baloney to claim that a baby can experience and express jealousy toward another.

If it is plausible to claim that a baby can experience and express jealousy, then this implies that a baby is capable of judging something to be good.

But this is absurd since babies have not achieved the cognitive development, constituted to a significant extent by the acquisition and use of language, which would give them the capacity for such judgments.

Hence, it is baloney to claim that a baby can experience and express jealousy toward another.

If it is plausible to claim that a baby can experience and express jealousy, then this implies that a baby is capable of feeling pleasure at someone’s loss of a good (Schadenfreude in babies!!!)  and feeling pain at someone’s possession of that good.

But this is absurd since babies have not achieved the cognitive and affect development, constituted to a significant extent by the acquisition and use of language, which would give them the capacity for such emotions, e.g., Schadenfreude.

Hence, it is baloney to claim that a baby can experience and express jealousy toward another.

Augustine’s irrational religious belief that babies are guilty of sin deserves a final demolition by means of this reductio ad absurdum:

To hold that babies are guilty of sinfulness, e.g., jealousy, a will to harm those who take care of them,  etc., implies that babies can be held responsible for those sins.

If babies can be held responsible for their sins, this implies that they could have refrained, by exercising choice, from their sins. It makes no sense to hold someone responsible for a sin if that person could not have refrained from committing that sin.

But it is absurd to think that babies are capable of exercising such choices about crying for milk, or attention, (serious sins in Augustine’s view!) or whether to feel jealousy at the sight of another baby at the breast.

The reason is that they have not achieved the stage of cognitive development, constituted to a significant extent by the acquisition and use of language, which would give them the capacity for self-reflection and for making choices based on it.

Hence, it is sheer baloney to claim or believe, as Augustine does, that babies are guilty of sin.

Q.E.D.

Libresco’s sensationalist disavowal of atheism and announcement of conversion to Catholicism is a good illustration of these features of popular “intellectual culture” in North America.

A religious conversion is not like the silly business of changing your allegiance to a new brand of clothing. It is a critical transforming event, for good or bad, marked by a close and deep encounter with death, loss, tragedy, despair, loneliness, and/or their opposites.

Libresco’s “conversion” has none of these features.

Does it then have at least a significant and redeeming  “moment of insight” underlying it? Hardly.

What transpired, on her own account, and led to her “conversion” is riddled with philosophical nonsense.

She said to a friend “I guess Morality just loves me or something.” (I should have expected that someone in North America would one day go so far as to actually personify “Morality” and include it among the persons they wish truly loved them!).

She then took “a second” to decide that she truly believed that “Morality” loved her! Spellbinding philosophical virtuosity indeed!

She goes on to add “I believed that the Moral Law wasn’t just a Platonic truth, abstract and distant.  It turns out I actually believed it was some kind of Person, as well as Truth. “

It is the trademark of bad philosophy that it uses language with no concern for what the words mean, or, worse, whether they mean anything at all.

“the Moral Law”? What is it? It’s simply a set of moral principles which imply judgments of right and wrong pertaining to human action or conduct.

To claim that a set of moral principles is “some kind of Person, as well as Truth” is utter nonsense or baloney.

And what could it possibly mean to say that a set of moral principles is or is not  “just a Platonic truth”?

What is this “Platonic truth” anyway?

There is just truth. There is no such thing as “Platonic truth”, “Aristotelian truth”, “Hegelian truth”, “Augustinian truth”, and so forth. Those are just figments of philosophical megalomania.

Perhaps, in using the expression “Platonic truth”,  Libresco is striving to refer to Plato’s bizarre metaphysical theory of “forms”  according to which “forms” or concepts exist in an unchanging world transcending the natural world.

Yes, indeed! How could particular cars possibly come into existence if there were not a “form” or concept of car subsisting changelessly in a mysterious and  unchanging world, accessible only to the “Platonic elite”, over and above this imperfect world in which those particular cars come into existence, undergo wear and tear, and are finally reduced to scrap metal in a junkyard? Right!!!

In any case, it is also utter nonsense to claim that a set of moral principles is “just a Platonic truth” or that it isn’t “just a Platonic truth”.

In Plato’s view, there is a “Form of the Good” which is the basis of all other “forms”. Our moral values and principles ultimately derive from and owe their existence to this “Form of the Good”.

Perhaps, this is the point Libresco was alluding to in the convoluted claim that “the Moral Law wasn’t just a Platonic truth”. And her claim, to render it intelligible,  is that she did not believe that our moral values and principles ultimately derive from and owe their existence to this supremely abstract “Form of the Good”.

What, then, did she believe?

Well, that our moral principles and values constitute “some kind of a Person”!

To repeat, this is just nonsense. One might as well claim that our legal and political principles and so forth are also “some kind of Persons”.

Perhaps, she intends to convey, by means of her nonsensical claims, the point that she believes that there is some kind of “Person” embodying in his nature and actions these moral values and principles?

Who is this “Person”? That’s no mystery. It has to be “God”, or perhaps, his “Only Begotten Son”, Jesus Christ!

But if one wants to play this personification game, then, given the fact that there are diverse and conflicting moral values and principles, doesn’t it make more sense to believe that there must be diverse “Persons”, or divinities, or Gods, each embodying a moral value and/or principle?

Why should one believe that there is a single “Person” who embodies diverse and conflicting moral values and principles, e.g., absolute justice and unconditional love, rather than that there are diverse “Persons” who embody different values and principles?

Why not believe that there is a God of Love, a Goddess of Justice, and so forth?

In fact, the notion that there is one “Person”, God, or Jesus Christ, who embodies in his character and actions “the Moral Law”, or diverse and conflicting moral values and principles, e.g., absolute justice and unconditional love, has the implication that this “Person” embodies contradictions and undergoes conflict, and , hence, is imperfect in his nature!!!

And an imperfect God is logically impossible in just the way a square circle is.

Therefore, Libresco’s attempt to argue for, or avow a belief  in,  the existence of a being which embodies conflicting  moral values and principles leads to the shocking conclusion that this being, even if it actually exists, cannot be the God of  theism, and particularly of Catholicism, since it would be an imperfect being!

And, in light of all this, what could one possibly say about her alleged “conversion” based on the kind of “belief “she avows?

An important question  pertaining to her “conversion” is this: Why convert to Catholicism rather than Mormonism or Protestantism? Why convert to a sect of Christianity rather than Islam? (Incidentally, I wonder about the reaction in ultra-tolerant North America had she announced a conversion to Islam!)

All of these religions hold the belief, or imply, that God is morally perfect.

Therfore, if it’s all about the notion of a being embodying moral perfection,  why should one choose Catholicism over Protestantism,  or even over Islam?

Actually, if one is driven by the need to believe in a being embodying moral perfection, then Christianity is the wrong choice!

The notion that God condemns you to eternal damnation for disbelief in “Him” is central to Christianity.

Whatever it is, such a being cannot be all-loving or morally perfect.

There are great human beings who would put this God of Catholicism to shame!

Hence, even if there is a good reason to think that there is a being, God, embodying moral perfection, this doesn’t justify conversion to Catholicism.

Notice also that if the existence of “Morality” justifies belief  in  a “Person”, God,  embodying it, then the existence of “Immorality” equally justifies belief in a “Person”, Satan, embodying it.

What a neat proof, a la Gödel,  of  the “Truth” of Catholicism!!!

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!

Goya: Pilgrimage To San Isidro

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?