I'll need all you reliable skeptics to get in here and provide some feedback: @MATF @SlightEdge @Teddyhorn (feel free to tag others you think might be interested)
Please don't think of this as a call out. It's not. But I've been looking into something and I would like you to comment.
Ok now bear with me.
Recently MATF made a post which I will quote in full:
Now this comment came up in the context of a drag queen thread. The thread was not primarily about religion. Religion was mentioned peripherally by MATF, but he was justified in bringing up religion since the President of WTAMU referred to religion in his letter. Also, I think the above-quoted text dovetails with a frequent criticism we've all heard, that religion is based in fear, and that science is based in something opposite to fear: @Sark2Texas had referred to science as arising from an opposite impulse (or temperament) to that of conservatism; to what Sark called "pushing the envelope", an activity we associate with Maverick in Top Gun, or Chuck Yeager in real life. Not fear but balls out boldness is the essential ingredient. Here is what Sark said:
Now this back & forth reminded me of something I had read long ago, regarding the origins of modern science in certain Renaissance thinkers who became famous as the pioneers of the kind of skepticism, rooted in radical rationality, that produced, eventually, the kind of empiricism that later came to be regarded as "natural philosophy" and eventually as the "modern science" with which we are now familiar. It is only from the point of view of this modern, empiricist horizon that we can begin to understand a recent response by @unihorn that it is "[k]ind of hard to quantify the tyranny risk." What cannot be quantified has no meaning within that horizon. It might as well be a daydream, in spite of whatever history might say.
Those pioneers can be identified, in reverse chronological order, by the names Spinoza, Hobbes, Descartes, and Acosta. The last & earliest of these names, Uriel Acosta (or 'da Costa) will surely be the least familiar to readers. Acosta was a member of the Portuguese Marrano community: i.e. former Jews forced to become Catholic Christians as a result of the reconquista. Over the course of his life, Acosta moved from Catholicism to Judaism; and then from Judaism to a denial of the immortality of the soul. He never completely renounced spirituality or "the gods", but he came to regard God as primarily the author of the natural law: as having expressed himself not through scripture, or prophecy, or revelation, but through the natural laws of the universe which could be verified by observation and observation alone.
Having been persecuted by Catholics, then by Protestants, then by Jews, he was repeatedly forced to recant from this or that belief, before finally publishing his Example of a Human Life in 1640 and then promptly shooting himself.
During his life, one of the men with which he corresponded was Samuel da Silva, who came to publicly denounce Acosta as "one who resurrects the disgraceful and long-buried sects of Epicurus." What is interesting for our story--or, what I wish to emphasize for the point of this post--is that Acosta never denied this accusation. Indeed, he validated that criticism by taking up a defense of Epicurus as well as his ancient and medieval followers.
Why is this important?--Because according to Epicurus' followers, with which Acosta was very familiar, the entire point of Epicureanism was the pursuit of happiness. The vulgar understanding of that doctrine can be easily dismissed:--Epicurus was not advocating that we devote ourselves to doing meth all day long. Rather, Epicurus was advocating that we find that mode of happiness which is most sustainable for human beings. The pursuit of sustainable happiness, it turns out, was not of a positive but of a negative character. Sustainable happiness was more securely approached by the elimination of fear than by the attainment of any physical or mental uphorias. Not an eros which could never be eternal but rather the elimination of fear which could be eternal was the most sustainable kind of happiness.
But fear could not be canceled forever so long as the possibility of eternal damnation existed. This was never a problem for Epicurus himself, or for his immediate followers such as Lucretius, in the 1st century BC. But it became a problem with the advent of Judeo-Christianity and specifically with the "innovation" of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul which appears (according to Acosta) only with the post-Mosaic writings of the Pharisees, a doctrine which was presupposed by the authors of the New Testament.
In other words, Acosta made it his mission to reassert the Epicurean premise on the modern ground of "renaissance" (re-awakening) thinking. One may only re-awaken what has been asleep. Renaissance is return. By regarding the New Testament, and eventually even the Old Testament, as "innovations", Acosta proclaims the need to return to an original, pre-biblical, & purely rational understanding of God. True revelation is rationality and nothing else. True revelation is only what we later came to call "science". God and modern science are synonymous.
Whatever one may think of Acosta's reasoning, if one follows it all the way home, it would mean that the common criticism against religion by the advocates of science--that science is for the Chuck Yeagers and the Mavericks of the world, whereas religion based in prophecy and scripture is for the fearful--is ultimately a hypocritical criticism. Modern skeptical science, to the degree that it finds its roots in the Epicurean motive to eliminate fear of eternal damnation as the greatest possible fear and the greatest impediment to happiness, is no more bold or envelope-pushing than the most fire-and-brimstone, snake-handling preachers in deep east Texas.
It is merely the reverse side of Pascal's Wager: they arrive at the same result by a different route: by rejecting revealed religion or by denying the immortality of the soul, the fear of eternal damnation is canceled.
Is there not some truth in this? Doesn't there exist in the original impulse of skepticism something of Acosta's original fear, which drove him backwards through time, from Catholicism back to Judaism and eventually to the denial of the immortality of the soul?
Where is this thesis wrong?
Thx in advance for any responses. I apologize, as always, for the length.
Please don't think of this as a call out. It's not. But I've been looking into something and I would like you to comment.
Ok now bear with me.
Recently MATF made a post which I will quote in full:
I've said it before without intent to insult, just an obvious observation from years of living on this planet and seeing human behavior, but staunch conservatism is 100% a fear based belief system. What a given individual fears so much to drive them to that way of thinking varies from person to person, but invariably if you dig deep enough it's there, and quite often you don't truly don't need to dig deep at all.
Now this comment came up in the context of a drag queen thread. The thread was not primarily about religion. Religion was mentioned peripherally by MATF, but he was justified in bringing up religion since the President of WTAMU referred to religion in his letter. Also, I think the above-quoted text dovetails with a frequent criticism we've all heard, that religion is based in fear, and that science is based in something opposite to fear: @Sark2Texas had referred to science as arising from an opposite impulse (or temperament) to that of conservatism; to what Sark called "pushing the envelope", an activity we associate with Maverick in Top Gun, or Chuck Yeager in real life. Not fear but balls out boldness is the essential ingredient. Here is what Sark said:
Your brain appears to be more comfortable with limited change. As a scientist, I will always try and push the envelope while also trying to consider the potential effects and then weighing the risks and benefits, which will ultimately decide the path I take.
Now this back & forth reminded me of something I had read long ago, regarding the origins of modern science in certain Renaissance thinkers who became famous as the pioneers of the kind of skepticism, rooted in radical rationality, that produced, eventually, the kind of empiricism that later came to be regarded as "natural philosophy" and eventually as the "modern science" with which we are now familiar. It is only from the point of view of this modern, empiricist horizon that we can begin to understand a recent response by @unihorn that it is "[k]ind of hard to quantify the tyranny risk." What cannot be quantified has no meaning within that horizon. It might as well be a daydream, in spite of whatever history might say.
Those pioneers can be identified, in reverse chronological order, by the names Spinoza, Hobbes, Descartes, and Acosta. The last & earliest of these names, Uriel Acosta (or 'da Costa) will surely be the least familiar to readers. Acosta was a member of the Portuguese Marrano community: i.e. former Jews forced to become Catholic Christians as a result of the reconquista. Over the course of his life, Acosta moved from Catholicism to Judaism; and then from Judaism to a denial of the immortality of the soul. He never completely renounced spirituality or "the gods", but he came to regard God as primarily the author of the natural law: as having expressed himself not through scripture, or prophecy, or revelation, but through the natural laws of the universe which could be verified by observation and observation alone.
Having been persecuted by Catholics, then by Protestants, then by Jews, he was repeatedly forced to recant from this or that belief, before finally publishing his Example of a Human Life in 1640 and then promptly shooting himself.
During his life, one of the men with which he corresponded was Samuel da Silva, who came to publicly denounce Acosta as "one who resurrects the disgraceful and long-buried sects of Epicurus." What is interesting for our story--or, what I wish to emphasize for the point of this post--is that Acosta never denied this accusation. Indeed, he validated that criticism by taking up a defense of Epicurus as well as his ancient and medieval followers.
Why is this important?--Because according to Epicurus' followers, with which Acosta was very familiar, the entire point of Epicureanism was the pursuit of happiness. The vulgar understanding of that doctrine can be easily dismissed:--Epicurus was not advocating that we devote ourselves to doing meth all day long. Rather, Epicurus was advocating that we find that mode of happiness which is most sustainable for human beings. The pursuit of sustainable happiness, it turns out, was not of a positive but of a negative character. Sustainable happiness was more securely approached by the elimination of fear than by the attainment of any physical or mental uphorias. Not an eros which could never be eternal but rather the elimination of fear which could be eternal was the most sustainable kind of happiness.
But fear could not be canceled forever so long as the possibility of eternal damnation existed. This was never a problem for Epicurus himself, or for his immediate followers such as Lucretius, in the 1st century BC. But it became a problem with the advent of Judeo-Christianity and specifically with the "innovation" of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul which appears (according to Acosta) only with the post-Mosaic writings of the Pharisees, a doctrine which was presupposed by the authors of the New Testament.
In other words, Acosta made it his mission to reassert the Epicurean premise on the modern ground of "renaissance" (re-awakening) thinking. One may only re-awaken what has been asleep. Renaissance is return. By regarding the New Testament, and eventually even the Old Testament, as "innovations", Acosta proclaims the need to return to an original, pre-biblical, & purely rational understanding of God. True revelation is rationality and nothing else. True revelation is only what we later came to call "science". God and modern science are synonymous.
Whatever one may think of Acosta's reasoning, if one follows it all the way home, it would mean that the common criticism against religion by the advocates of science--that science is for the Chuck Yeagers and the Mavericks of the world, whereas religion based in prophecy and scripture is for the fearful--is ultimately a hypocritical criticism. Modern skeptical science, to the degree that it finds its roots in the Epicurean motive to eliminate fear of eternal damnation as the greatest possible fear and the greatest impediment to happiness, is no more bold or envelope-pushing than the most fire-and-brimstone, snake-handling preachers in deep east Texas.
It is merely the reverse side of Pascal's Wager: they arrive at the same result by a different route: by rejecting revealed religion or by denying the immortality of the soul, the fear of eternal damnation is canceled.
Is there not some truth in this? Doesn't there exist in the original impulse of skepticism something of Acosta's original fear, which drove him backwards through time, from Catholicism back to Judaism and eventually to the denial of the immortality of the soul?
Where is this thesis wrong?
Thx in advance for any responses. I apologize, as always, for the length.
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