Common Ground Between Believers and Nonbelievers
It is a frequent lament that religious believers and nonbelievers have so little in common that meaningful dialog is impossible. Some believers as well as some nonbelievers choose to disconnect themselves from debate with others rather than to find common ground. Those who abandon public discourse with those holding different viewpoints under this excuse suffer from either oppressive close-mindedness or a lack of creativity. One believer who invoked this lament after shutting down an online dialog asked:
how do [Christians dialog with atheists] in such a way that we actually accomplish something, instead of just beating our heads against the wall, arguing with someone who might as well believe the answer is “red” where we believe it to be “7″?
The differences between believers and nonbelievers is not nearly as pronounced as this author makes it out to be. Although believers and nonbelievers certainly have differences, there is significant opportunity for common ground, both on the cosmic and the practical levels.
The cosmic level
On the cosmic level, believers and nonbelievers appear to be living in different worlds. Believers claim that their god or gods are responsible for the creation and maintenance of the universe while nonbelievers refuse to agree with that conclusion. The key link, though, is that these positions are conclusions.
Conclusions flow from evidence, reason, and in the case of religion, faith. Most good believers have reasons for their faith, and can explain how they came to their conclusions (above). The first level of dialog is purely educational. Everyone benefits from hearing about the beliefs and cultures of others. This promotes tolerance and a broader worldview. The second level of dialog is critical, and occurs when believers and nonbelievers challenge each other’s positions. This is still possible as long as both recognize that the ultimate statements defining the believer’s position are conclusions that flow from evidence, reason, and eventually faith.
Each level of the process (evidence, reason, faith) is open to outside criticism. and provides common ground for a intellectual people. Evidence can be supported or refuted. It can be dug up in a desert, translated from a monolith, or modeled in a computer. Reason requires logic and consistency, and it connects pieces of evidence together. This is the largest portion of the common ground between believers and nonbelievers and involves critiques of internal consistency or unwarranted assumptions.
The last level of the process, faith, may be the least susceptible to outside criticism. By definition, faith is a belief in something not provable and therefore not disprovable. Two loopholes create opportunities for common ground. The first loophole is that some positions presented as “faith” positions are, in fact, disprovable. The second is that even pure faith can be criticized as unreasonable, primarily by referring back to evidence or reason. A person may honestly have a “faith” belief that the Earth is flat, but this belief is not immune from criticism. Another person may honestly believe that Santa Claus is a real person who lives at the North Pole, but this belief is not insulated either. Common ground abounds between believers and nonbelievers, even on the cosmic issues. The ultimate positions of the two sides will be different, but the gap between the two is not unbridgeable.
The categories used here are intentionally believers and nonbelievers, rather than believers and atheists. There is much more potential for believer-nonbeliever dialog than between religious individuals and atheists. If a Christian and a Buddhist engage in a discussion, the Christian is a believer with regard to Christianity and the Buddhist is a nonbeliever with regard to Christianity. Likewise, the Buddhist is a believer with regard to Buddhism and the Christian is a nonbeliever with regard to Buddhism. It is an intellectual tragedy when potential dialog is shut down because people in disagreement cannot find common ground.
The practical level
On the practical level, believers and nonbelievers have even more common ground than they do on the cosmic level. On the cosmic level, believers and nonbelievers can learn from each other and can criticize each other’s positions, but there is very little chance for eventual agreement. On the practical level, however, there is room for lots of agreement between believers and nonbelievers.
Practically, people must come together in society and determine how communal resources will be allocated and how behavior will be governed. These political questions bring believers and nonbelievers together and force interaction among them. It is not acceptable for believers and nonbelievers to turn their backs on each other when real-life practical matters are at stake. Fortunately, there is a lot of common ground available between believers and nonbelievers to address practical problems.
At the core of most belief systems is a set of values generally acceptable to society at large. (I will limit myself to Christianity, since I am most familiar with it.) For example, Christianity has several broad principles at its core: love, charity, self-control, and peace. When approaching political questions, many Christians are able to find common ground with nonbelievers when their positions are based on these universal principles. Atheists, Christians, Jews, and most others can agree on principles like trying to provide the greatest good for the greatest number. After that fundamental agreement, discussions usually focus on the best way of actualizing those principles.
Lost opportunities
Those who cut themselves off from others with whom they disagree do themselves and the rest of society a disservice. They lose the opportunity to learn from exposing themselves to a diverse set of views. They lose the opportunity to examine their own belief systems for reasonableness under pressure from outside critique form stronger opinions. On the practical level, they lose the ability to persuade and cooperate with others to craft real-world political solutions.
Finding common ground may not always be easy or obvious, but it is worthwhile. By refusing to find common ground, some believers lock themselves in cycles intellectual inbreeding. Intellectual believers and nonbelievers can and should get together to discuss matters of cosmic and practical significance. They will benefit from the exchange and they will make society better overall.
My own experience with deists is that 99.9% percent of them don’t WANT to have meaningful dialog with an atheist and find common ground: they want to convert me.
I have to disagree, I don’t think there is a common linkage. You mentioned differing approaches but the same result through something like ethics “love/peace/compassion”. That means there is common ground on basic ethics practically intrinsic to living in a modern society – not reflective of common ground – here’s why:
Science and Religion are utterly incompatible. The building of evidence and logic on side is shaped by evolving evidence – it is crafted by intense peer scrutiny.The other is a house of cards based on “leaps of faith” where something is accepted as true because it was written. I suppose what I am attempting to say is that the irreconcilable difference is the logic chain. Arguing ad nasuem is just so pointless because every debate turns into “well the bible said (or inferred/church said whatever) ” then it turns on the atheist to compile mounds of scientific evidence to overturn a belief. It’s intellectually obnoxious – make a simple unfounded claim, wait to be empirically debunked, then amend superstition to flow around evidence without embarrassment that the same logical flaw occurred. I am tired of explaining how an ark could scientifically not have existed only to face a rebuttal like “even if it took 10,000 men a lifetime to build god makes it possible AND that maybe it didn’t even need to get that big because after all the animals came off they micro-evolved, thus you didn’t need every type of animal.” That’s a mighty doctrinal piece, but it is a microcosm of the millions of (mildly more reasonable) discussions that occur constantly.
The point is the difference is “How One Reasons”. If a person thinks its reasonable to give weight to superstitious ideas, they are at odds with reality. If a person is not dissuaded from the myth that a man walked on water their reasoning is so flawed that arguing the major issues is impractical.
A major point of contention I have with you is this idea of a “debate” which you keep articulating… it is feel good nonsense. There is no real debate because the logical underpinnings of one side are nonexistent. It is fun watching you staunchly try to reconcile the differences, but I think eventually you will be persuaded that atheism(science) and religion and diametrically opposed.
My Harding Bible Old Testament class has given me unique insight into the mind of the Christian academic. Virtually all archaeological evidence we discuss must either be dissected from two apposing standpoints- that of the Christian, who assumes the Bible to be infallible or that of the scientist who assumes it is just another historical document created by humans. The two sides can only constructively discuss the things they agree on.
If the bible says Abraham had herds of camels, it must be true according to the Christian, despite archaeological evidence that seems to indicate that camels were not domesticated until several hundred years after Abraham’s death. The debate cannot be constructive at this point, as demonstrated by my professor, who criticized the science behind archaeology (hes an archaeologist) rather than concede a minor textual inaccuracy.
Religion thrives in ambiguity, and science strives to eliminate ambiguity. The two are apposing forces.
@Mike and Brian,
I have no problem viewing the issues you raise through the lens of my analysis.
Look at the picture at the top of the article. On one side, there is a platform with nonbelievers and on the other, the believers. The believers are, by the way, the vast majority of American society. The nonbelievers are made up of a lot of people like us. Any time we make criticisms like the ones you guys have identified, we are showing that there is a way to connect the two platforms. It doesn’t always have an effect on every individual on the believer platform, but that doesn’t negate the core point.
If people like the silly blog author I quoted were right, then there is no way for believers and nonbelievers to dialog whatsoever. Instead, we prove people like that wrong all the time.
I didn’t think the current question was whether the two sides could “dialog whatsoever.” I thought it was about whether they can have a debate over their disagreements in a constructive manner. Perhaps it is drastic to say the two sides have no common ground, but your example, my example, and Mike’s example were all about instances in which Biblical text contradicts reason. At that point there can be no constructive dialogue between the two sides.
You are talking about the extremes, the exceptions, when you talk about someone who can be faced with evidence (like archaeological evidence) and refuse to accept it.
I start out the article with an example recognizing that there is a problem of some believers insulating themselves from reasonable criticism by running for the hills. If anything, the point of the article is to tell them, “hey, get back here and face what we have to say; you are still subject to reasonable criticism.” I think you, Mike, and I agree on that.
The key difference between what I am saying and what you are saying is that what I am saying is prescriptive and what you are saying is descriptive. I am saying that people ought to be open to using reason as common ground for dialog, even with others from different backgrounds, and anyone who refuses to is foolish. You are saying that some people (maybe even a lot of people) refuse to. We don’t disagree, we are just looking at the situation from different perspectives.
I agree with you in part, but I don’t think that its the important part. Let me explain.
The assumptions of a Christian and an atheist when they are discussing something like chemical reactions in a lab are identical- both assume that certain atoms and molecules combine and react to create various compounds and mixtures. So the believer and the nonbeliever can dialog about basic chemistry.
In areas of contention, that is, when the assumptions of the two parties conflict (inspired text v skepticism), there can be no constructive dialogue because there is a gap of ‘faith’ that must be taken in order to believe a text is inspired/infallible. That leap is something no skeptic would be willing to take, and no believer would be willing to take away.
So yes, they can talk about things constructively, just not those things that are in contention.
Your assumption analysis is good, but you might be overestimating the number of people who place inerrant biblical inspiration in the assumption category. Most Christians do not believe that their text is perfect. Among those who do, most of those would say that they do not assume that, they conclude that after being convinced. That fits in with my analysis, because if they have been convinced by evidence/reason, then those things could be used to challenge their positions.
In practical terms…
If you bring me a typical Christian, he will believe in Jesus and will value the Bible, but he will not believe that the Bible is inerrant/inspired. He and I can argue using evidence and reason and we can discuss pretty much any subject under the sun.
Perhaps you bring me a rarer breed of Christian, one who does believe that the Bible is inerrant/inspired. This fellow is likely to describe his belief as a conclusion rather than an assumption. He is unlikely to admit that this belief is an arbitrary, baseless assumption or a blind leap of faith without any warrant whatsoever. We can have robust discussions as well.
I can even dialog with the extreme Christian who not only believes that the Bible is inerrant/inspired, but also believes that this position must be taken completely on faith and must be accepted regardless of contrary evidence or “human reason.” Nobody can really escape the reach of reason, and I can argue that it is unreasonable and unwise for this person to hold this position.
Remember that this has everything to do with dialog and nothing necessarily to do with convincing. Very few people are convinced of anything through open rational discussion like this. That is entirely beside the point. The point is that the believer is not insulated from reason and so based on that common ground, any believer can have significant common ground with a nonbeliever.
The closest I have ever came to occupying common ground with a believer is recognizing that there is a possibility we could both me wrong. (Although deep down, we both feel we are right)
It is at this time I would like to quote the famous Cookie Monster, “One of these things, is not the like others”
(evidence, reason, faith)