If you live in the U.S., it’s very easy to get complacent about religion. The most serious Bad Thing traceable to religion in recent years was the September 11th attacks, which involved a relatively small number of deaths (as I pointed out in my foray into film criticism). For the vast majority of Americans who didn’t lose friends or family in the attacks, they were a major event in the news but a non-event in their own lives.
But the U.S. is, overall, one of the best places on Earth to live. If you want to know the impact religion has on people’s lives, you need to remember what life is like in the worst places on Earth. This month, we’ve gotten two good reminders of this:
Story number one: The Pope’s visit to Africa: It used to be, life expectancies were low everywhere, now, Africa is the last place on Earth where you can find life expectancies below 50, and most of it’s because of the AIDS, which affects 20% of the population in some regions. Now, Pope goes to Africa, and predictably declares people must not use condoms to stop the spread of the disease, even claiming that using condoms could make the problem worse. I can’t improve on PZ here: the Pope is an evil quack.
Story number two: Afghan student gets 20 years for “blasphemy”: Again, used to be most places were ruled by tyrants who killed anyone who got in their way. Now, even former banana republics and Soviet satellites are democracies, and the Middle East is one of the last regions on Earth where political freedom–or even clear progress towards political freedom–is almost nil. Unlike, say, China, in Muslim countries the defining feature of the local tyranny is that you must not openly dissent from the dominant religion. When it’s not in the news, we Westerners can forget it’s even a problem, but those living that life must live in constant fear, even if they’re not currently imprisoned. Bonus points if you noticed that the “blasphemy” conviction was really for distributing a pamphlet on women’s rights, a good example of hour lack of intellectual freedom can back up other horrors.
If you have any sense of perspective, you realize that U.S. fundamentalism is pretty far down on the list of nasties our species has had to deal with in its history. But if you’re living in one of the worst places on earth, I can guarantee religion is a key factor in making your life suck.
Contra Edward Feser, I would say some of the key the values of the Enlightenment: (governement by consent, individual rights, and religious tolerance) are good things and help keep the excesses of religious tyrants in check.
I can’t see why anyone would argue as he seems to do that the West should retreat back into the 13th Century.
“I can’t see why anyone would argue as he seems to do that the West should retreat back into the 13th Century.”
Where in the world did you get the idea that Feser argues for a ‘retreat back into the 13th century,’ especially when it comes to the issues you raised (‘governement by consent, individual rights, and religious tolerance’)?
In Feser’s book ‘The Last Superstition’ there is a brief review of the alleged errors of John Lock and those issues are specifically mentioned (somewhere around p 175).
Feser rejects both the Enlightenment and the Reformation – which fits in nicely with his apparent distate for their fruits: freedom of conscience, individual rights, representative government and so forth.
Thomas Aquinas, whom Feser seems to regard as the peak of philosophical achievement, flourished in the 13th century.
I think it is not wholly off-base to characterize Feser’s obvious hostility toward modern life and nostalgia for the Middle Ages as a desire to ‘retreat’ to his preferred milieu.
Feser begins to set out his anti-Aristotle conspiracy theory on page 171 – among the villains are Martin Luther, John Calvin, Roger Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Rene Descatres, etc. Together they scheme to overthrow the Medieval understanding of the world to make room for the ‘modern secular project’ – and can only accomplish that end by ‘rigging the game’ against against Aristotle and Aquinas.
To be precise, Feser concludes on page 183 of ‘The Last Superstition’ after detailing some of Locke’s ideas:
“…this is only the beginning of Locke’s many sins against philosophy. And yet he is one of the most important figures in the early modern anti-Aristotelian revolution – and arguably the *quintessential* modern philosopher, insofar as now prevailing Western attitudes about scientific rationality, religious toleration, government by consent, and individual rights owe more to Locke than to any other thinker. As has been noted, the generally acknowledged feebleness of his arguments has not led many to want to reconsider his conclusions, precisely because those conclusions have become so deeply embedded in the Western liberal consciousness that it is simply taken for granted that they *must* be defensible somehow, whether or not Locke himself was able to pull it off.”