Aswad
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Joined: 4/4/2007
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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle
Thank you Aswad for a serious and considered response.
Et tu.
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The standard means of conflict resolution between divergent discourses in our society is reason, persuasion and debate. This brings us to possibly to the crunch of this issue - how to resolve conflict between faith-based discourses and reason-based discourses?
I don't know, except to say that I've usually found it quite possible, to the point of having converted recruiters from other religions into my own views. Generally, the only problem arises the same place as it does with non-religious topics: when you have someone that's entirely certain about their position and the fault of all other positions. Now, I'm not talking about "conviction", but outright deadlock. I've found it to be independent of religion, except that obviously some religions will thrive more among such people than elsewhere (which still doesn't justify swapping the cart and the horse).
What tends to be helpful, for me, is to start out with respecting their position, and a desire to understand it and why they adhere to it. Then, proceeding from within their frame of reference to communicate with them on common ground (I've no need for it to be my ground), I explore their position in the direction of interest. Usually, that ends up being an exploration for them, too, and frequently they find themselves arriving at something closely resembling my position, or at least arriving at the conclusion that their position is independent of- and unsupported by- their religion.
A classic example is with regards to homosexuality, which is cherrypicking in the extreme on the part of most who claim to object to it on religious grounds. But saying so outright isn't very productive, being an approach that is likely to degenerate into something that does not communicate anything more than would be the case with two people in an "is not"/"is too" loop. Instead, explore their grounds for it, and how that fits in the framework of their beliefs about their religion. And do so from the starting point that it's okay for them to be offended by gay people (imagine they're saying "I don't like blondes", or something else that you don't feel strongly about, but which is conceptually equivalent: a preference without much of a basis beyond any other preference).
Generally, you can arrive at a point where they have to rethink their stance, or divorce their views about homosexuality from their religious convictions. At that point, their aversion to homosexuality becomes "free-floating", and subject to the same drift of opinions as anything else that is opinion or preference. Before introducing that split, their opinion is anchored, and unlikely to change from exposure. After, it is likely that exposure will desensitize the aversive side of things and build a more sensible foundation that leads to increasing acceptance. Over time, the likely result is that they will largely be comfortable with homosexuals, and will retain fewer prejudices and be more amenable to having those prejudices changed (e.g. from befriending homosexuals).
In that sense, it's little different from some racists: take away the anchor points, and the tendency becomes mutable, and they eventually cease to be negative about other races. You may still find that some of them have preferences in this regard. But that's something comparatively benign. For instance, while I've never been a racist (as far as I can tell, anyway), I rarely find black women attractive. I know counterexamples, including one woman on CM that I would relish the chance to play with, so it doesn't involve a blocking out of perception. Similarly, like a lot of men, I find Asian and Latino women more attractive in general than "Aryan" women. Culturally, I'm not much of a fan of Brits, can't say Chile agrees with me, and I'm somewhat either-or when it comes to Turks. Such things are preferences, and will stay with people when they've discarded the things that block out their perceptions. The main difference is that preferences can change. Maybe I'll learn to like British humor one day, while skiing on a day pass to Hell (it's not that far from here by train). Maybe I'll have the hottest sex ever with a Somali woman and end up associating their distinctive appearance with it to the extent that it becomes a fetish. Things sometimes change when they're not anchored down.
So, yeah, with a lot of religious people who spout disagreeable things about whatever, I've generally been able to arrive at mutual respect, often with a substantial change in outlook on the part of the person who was being disagreeable. As a religious person myself, I would tend to attribute some small part of this to most religions having something fundamentally good and incredibly human about them. From that small, solid, shared foundation of humanity and a desire for good, one can make incredible leaps forward in the relations between people. But one has to be willing to respect the other person and their views to have a realistic shot at that.
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All the reason in the world won't change convictions based on faith, and all the faith in the world will be equally ineffective against a reason-based discourse.
It helps to remember that we're all quite able to deal with both. The money in my account is a construct that exists because a lot of people believe in it, and billions of people deal with money every day. We've nothing but faith to tell us that we even exist in any meaningful sense (all arguments to the contrary are circular). And we can use reason to debate the historical context of religious texts and movements, or the evolution of their language, or the internal consistency of their theologies. Even rhetoric has some degree of foundation in reason, although being less rigorously reasoned than logic.
In most fields of crucial human endeavours, there are objective and subjective elements, and I don't find either difficult to deal with, nor should anyone with the capacity for abstract thinking. Yet, for many, the facility simply collapses. Fortunately, this can often be remedied by broadening their perspectives (which again benefits from working from wherever they're at, toward where they need to be to understand you).
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An excellent example of this is the abortion debate in the US.
Quite so. And as regards the triumph of reason: Chomsky stated in an interview that he supports the pro choice position because he dislikes abortions. In the same (I think) interview, he noted how the resources spent by the anti choice crowd could have led to a huge reduction in abortions if directed toward other goals. That's why I prefer to call it anti-choice, since they're not concerned with whether abortions occur- they're concerned with whether women have them.
That said, pulling religion back into the picture: it was Christians that put an end to infanticide in the West by adopting all the children left exposed to die by the Romans (a custom where men had to claim a child for it to have the right to live). They did this at the risk of being crucified for doing it. And within a short period of time, the practice had all but ended.
It's clear that religion carries within it the seeds of action, and of social change. The trick is to influence the world around you so that our better natures win out. When that is the case, religion brings out the best in us. When the converse is true, religion brings out the worst in us. It's more a matter of potential than a fixed thing, much as a knife can both cut a throat and perform life saving surgery, depending on which potential the wielder decides to realize.
The abortion debate is a case where battle lines have been drawn, instead of both sides finding common ground and proceding from there. I think it's safe to say "nobody" wants abortions to happen in a perfect world. Which means, if we care about that, rather than about controlling women, then we can work to get closer to a set of circumstances where it doesn't happen (or at least doesn't happen often). Reducing rape, improving standards of living, and so forth. Those are all measures that lead to fewer foetuses aborted, and measures I would think both sides of the issue could agree are good ones. By the time that's dealt with, even to the point of diminishing returns, the sides have done a world of good and practiced reason as a problem solving tool. At that point, it should be comparatively trivial to determine whether or not there would be any gain to hashing out the final bone of contention (I think not, but those with strong opinions on the matter will probably want it resolved). If I'm right that outlawing it would only lead to more abortions, then the jury is in with the verdict "as good as it gets" without a disagreement arising at any point.
Ultimately, some people will have opinions on such things that are irreconcileable, but the practical gap is minute by comparison, and this is not strictly a religious thing. For instance, an atheist friend of mine is firmly of the opinion that concern for the foetus trumps any concerns about the mother. He does agree that the road should start with improving conditions for women and other highly efficient means of reducing the number of abortions in a non-confrontational manner. But when all other measures have been perfected, and no other topics are more pressing, the next on his list would be taking away the freedom of women to control this aspect of their bodies. On that point, his opinion is irreconcileable with mine, which does not come down to religion for either of us. There's a long, shared road to get to the crossroads, but there is indeed a fork in the road. Meanwhile, though, that's a pretty long walk that we can walk together.
That's where I think reason enters the picture, and a measure of respect. It's also where the rubber leaves the road in the abortion debate: we have common ground here, and instead we're fighting about it, and we are doing so to the detriment of both sides' goals. It's a lose-lose situation, and it's pursued vigorously. In my experience, religions rarely introduce a requirement to dive into the lose-lose scenario, whereas a lot of aspects of human nature make us quite inherently inclined to do so as a species. Religion often tries to work around that, but also often fails, particularly when one lacks some clearsighted visionaries to work to keep the living faith on the right track.
Have a look at Jesus or Muhammad (peace be on them both)...
... do they strike you as people who dealt with the reality around them, or people who denied it?
Health,
al-Aswad.
_____________________________
"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.
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