In a previous post, I argued that some first-rate philosophers and thinkers openly concede that non-rational factors like the fear of God (or religion, meaning some form of supernaturalism) is one of the reasons to embrace materialism as the best position, even when the arguments for it fail.
Well, first-rate philosopher, naturalist and atheist John Searle has conceded something similar too. Read carefully this argumentation: "How is it that so many philosophers and cognitive scientists can say so many things that, to me at least, seem obviously false?... I believe one of the unstated assumptions behind current batch of views is that they represent the only scientifically acceptable alternatives to the anti-scientism that went with traditional dualism, the belief in the immortality of the soul, spiritualism, and so on. Acceptance of the current views is motivated not so much by an independent conviction of their truth as by a terror of what are apparently the only alternatives. That is, the choice we are tacitly presented with is between a "scientific" approach, as represented by one or another of the current versions of "materialism", and an "unscientific" approach, as represented by Cartesianism or some other traditional religious conception of the mind" (The Rediscovery of the Mind, pp. 3-4)
Some comments:
1)Searle point out to one of the "unstated assumptions" of cognitive scientists, neuroscientists and philosophers.
2)That assumption is that materialism is the only scientific alternative; non-materialistic positions are "assumed" to be unscientific and religious.
3)More importantly, and contrary to the beliefs of many ideologues for materialism and uncritical believers in metaphysical naturalism and mainstream science, "Acceptance of the current views is motivated not so much by an independent conviction of their truth as by a terror of what are apparently the only alternatives"
In other words, materialism is not accepted because it's true or probably true, but because the TERROR of the alternatives. Non-materialist positions are rejected by non-rational motives.
It doesn't mean that anti-dualistic arguments don't exist, because arguments against dualism actually exist (I've discussed many of them in this blog). The point is that the rejection of these positions (like dualism) is not due to materialism being intrinsically superior, but because dualism is seen as implying religion or spiritualism. And given that naturalism and atheism is assumed to be true or probably true, then any idea connected with religion has to be rejected out of hand.
That observation about materialism NOT being intrinsically superior is confirmed by other first rate materialist and atheist philosophers. For example, William Lycan: "Being a philosopher, of course I would like to think that my stance is rational, held not just instinctively and scientistically and in the mainstream but because the arguments do indeed favor materialism over dualism. But I do not think that, though I used to. My position may be rational, broadly speaking, but not because the arguments favor it: Though the arguments for dualism do (indeed) fail, so do the arguments for materialism. And the standard objections to dualism are not very convincing; if one really manages to be a dualist in the first place, one should not be much impressed by them."
In other words, the arguments for materialism fail; but in spite of this, materialism is accepted as correct. Is that a rational position?
The objections against dualism don't work. But in spite of this, dualism is rejected out of hand and the same flawed objections are repeated again and again. Is that a rational position?
How can we explain this consistent irrationality? Searle gives us the answer: there is an unstated assumption that materialism has to be true, because it's the only "scientific" position. All the other alternatives are "religious" and, therefore, unscientific.
Note that that argument assume the truth of atheism and the falsity of theism (or of any other transcendental, spiritual or religious conception of a supreme reality beyond the material universe). In other words, science entails naturalism, and the latter implies atheism. Therefore, religious or spiritual concepts are, per definition, unscientific and assumed to be false.
One could argue that if materialism is not supported by good arguments (and in fact, it's full of serious and even argueably fatal flaws), then we have reason to doubt the validity of naturalism and, therefore, of naturalistic-based atheism too. However, I don't want to push this argument here, because we would have to make many qualifications and specifications.
The key point is that the opposition to dualism and, by implication, to parapsychology and afterlife research (which suggest "religious" concepts, like the soul, immortality, etc.) is not based on evidence alone, but in a terror and fear of the religious notions and, therefore, the falsehood of atheism. In other words, the debate has a emotional and irrational components. And ultimately, it has a philosophical background compenent too, because parapsychology and afterlife (if correct) destroys the materialistic worldview (it confirms a core argument of the excellent book by Chris Carter entitled Parapsychology and The Skeptics)
Atheist philosopher and first-rate thinker Thomas Nagel has noted that too. In his book The Last Word, he calls it the Cosmic Authority Problem: " I believe that this is one manifestation of a fear of religion which has large and often pernicious consequences for modern intellectual life.
In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper—namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and wellinformed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.
My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind. Darwin enabled modern secular culture to heave a great collective sigh of relief, by apparently providing a way to eliminate purpose, meaning, and design as fundamental features of the world" (Emphasis added)
If these first-rate thinkers are right, religious notions like dualism, the immortality of the soul, afterlife, etc. are rejected by non-rational factors. Given the parapsychology and afterlife research support some of these concepts, is not reasonable to think that at least PART of the opposition to these fields by mainstream science is caused by these non-rational factors mentioned by Searle and Nagel?
Only naive and extremely uncritical believers in atheism, materialism and metaphysical naturalism (and there are a lot of them, specially on the internet) denies the above factors, at least as a serious possibility or factor in the debate about parapsychology.
In fact, these anti-religious fears and obsessions of materialistic atheists are so evident and common that you can test it by yourself. Try to debate about afterlife or parapsychology with a materialistic pseudoskeptic or believer in metaphysical naturalism. In almost each case, you'll find him replying to you with irrelevant references to God, religion, angels and, (specially) "creationism". It's almost like an obsession for them, and that obsession is feed by their own philosophy of life which is, almost entirely, a negation of religion. (When that obsessive negation of religion is expressed in ethics, we find a desctructively and dangerously immoral ideological system known as "Secular Humanism")
They see as a virtue to deny any religious concept, even if such denegation is irrational, inmoral or socially desctructive. If you try to explain this to them, they'll accuss you of "creationist", religious bigot or "conspiracy theorist". Don't believe me, test it by yourself when you debate with them (or read pseudoskeptical forums of discussion about parapsychology and afterlife).
Constantly, predictably and consistently, they'll bring the debate to the religious or creationist arena (even if you are not religious at all or even if you're some kind of agnostic or non-materialistic atheist). This gives us important and valuable information about the psychological state of these individuals.
If you understand that, you'll learn that, in the case of extreme and uncritical believers in materialism, you're dealing with essentially irrational and intellectually dishonest people. They're not and can't be rational, because their reason is strongly influenced by emotional and obsessive anti-religious factors. All their psychology seems to be based on fixed ideas about God and creationism.
They have religion, God and creationism constantly in their minds; possibly, they think about these things everyday and interpret the world in terms of anti-religious concepts alone.
This is the main reason why all your arguments will fail with them; they always interpret your arguments with the colored-glasses of anti-religion, anti-spiritual materialism, and will suspect that you're a covert Christian or deluded religious bigot.
Searle, Lycan, Nagel and a few of other naturalist thinkers are perhaps the exception. They're intellectually honest enough to see the irrational factors affecting the debate on the mind-body problem and, by extension, on any topic that challenge materialism (like parapsychology or afterlife, we could add). As such, these thinkers deserves all our admiration and respect.
But don't be so naive to think that the common, normal materialistic pseudoskeptic that you'll find (mainly on the internet, because it's improbable that you meet one of them on the street, given that they're very few in number), will be so reasonable and open minded as those thinkers.
Links of interest:
-My post on naturalist and atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel and the Cosmic Authority Problem.
-For a contrary opinion to the idea that science is incompatible with the belief in God or theism, see the book God's Undertaker by philosopher and mathematician John Lennox.
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