Month: May 2014

Shakespeare, Skeptic?

In an excerpt from his new book, The Science of Shakespeare: A New Look at the Playwright’s Universe, which connects the Bard to the emerging worldview of the Scientific Revolution, Dan Falk claims that “just as his works hint at the beginnings of science, so, too, do they hint at the possibility of unbelief.” The evidence he finds for this in King Lear:

In this most somber of Shakespeare’s plays, the gods are often called upon—by the king and Gloucester and others—but they do not respond. In their absence, justice cannot be guaranteed; indeed, it becomes fragile in the extreme. Lear, in desperation, hopes that events will “show the heavens more just,” but it is a lost cause. The play ends, as William Elton puts it, “with the death of the good at the hands of the evil.” In one of the play’s most famous—and darkest—lines, Gloucester laments, “As flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods/ They kill us for their sport.” …

In King Lear and the Gods, Elton presents a kind of checklist of what makes a “Renaissance skeptic”—denying divine providence, denying the immortality of the soul, placing mankind among the beasts, denying God’s role as creator of the universe, attributing to nature what is properly the work of God—and then shows that Lear, over the course of the play, develops into precisely such a skeptic. It is a gradual process, but it is relentless: “Lear’s disillusionment, once begun, sweeps all before it, toppling the analogical edifices of God and man, divine and human justice.” As [Shakespeare scholar Eric] Mallin put it in our interview, King Lear is “essentially a godless document”; it describes a world “emptied of divinity.”

Previous Dish on Shakespeare and religion here. Our round-up celebrating the anniversary of his birth here.

(Video: The Royal Shakespeare Company performs Act 5, Scene 3 of King Lear)

Into The Void

In a review of the new collection Simone Weil and Theology, John Caruana describes how the Christian philosopher connected divinity to denial:

One of the most fascinating themes in Weil’s philosophy — and here the [editors’] commentary truly shines — centers on the emptiness or void of reality. This void is the indelible mark that is left behind in God’s own self-voiding, in the very unfolding of creation itself. In order to make room for a finite universe, God dispossesses himself of his infinite powers. For Weil, that process is most evident in Christ. Following Paul, she sees Christ as the eikon, or visible image of the invisible God. Weil takes seriously Paul’s claim that whatever we can know about God can be only gleaned from the figure of Christ. Paul deploys the term kenosis to flag what he takes to be fundamental to Jesus’s nature: he is God emptying himself out. In a gesture of love, God denies himself his transcendent status for the sake of some other. The created order thus bears the mark of this divine self-abnegation.

For Weil, this is the only way to make sense of the Biblical passages that show a God suffering along with his creatures. In this way, Weil fuses divinity, love, and affliction. To love truly requires attentiveness and openness to the fissures of reality, and although our inclination is to take flight before these pockets of emptiness, this diminishes us. In our attempt to flee the void, we frequently give in to the temptation of deflecting our own suffering by hurting others.

Atheism’s Creation Story

Julian Baggini reviews Nick Spencer’s book Atheists: The Origin of the Species, calling the author “the kind of intelligent, thoughtful, sympathetic critic that atheists need, if only to remind them that belief in God does not necessarily require a loss of all reason.” He goes on to write that although “there is plenty here for infidels to argue with, there is much more that is undeniably true and important to know, if you want to understand the complex histories of both present-day religion and atheism”:

What is … debatable is the contention that “the history of atheism is best seen as a series of disagreements about authority” rather than one primarily about the existence of God. “To deny God was not simply to deny God,” writes Spencer. “It was to deny the emperor or the king who ruled you, the social structures that ordered your life, the ethical ties that regulated it, the hopes it inspired and the judgment that reassured it.”

This is certainly true. But it does not follow that the tussle between religion and atheism is political rather than philosophical.

Baggini feels that it’s “a false choice to say that the battles must ‘really’ be either political or metaphysical: the messy reality is that they are jumble of both.” Where Spencer is on firmer ground:

[H]e is right to say that there is something odd about the kind of secular humanism that says all we need to do, to quote the famous bus campaign slogan, is accept “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Believing that human beings are special is natural if you believe God created us apart from other animals, not if you believe we are higher primates whose brains evolved to help us survive and reproduce. This should certainly call into question naive atheist faith in the power of secular reason, even if Spencer goes too far when he suggests it ends up undermining its very basis, “sawing through the branch on which the atheist sat”.

If Heaven Is For Real, What About Hell?

probably about 1475-6

Surveying some of the controversy sparked by the film Heaven is for Real, which suggests everyone will end up there, Peter Berger considers how Christians through the centuries have grappled with the question of hell:

However the details of hell were imagined (Christian art was busy for centuries depicting such images), there can be no doubt that both Testaments proposed a day of judgment that would segregate the blessed from the damned. Jesus himself is identified as the judge who effects the segregation—heaven this way, hell the other way. Arguably Islam puts the day of judgment at the center of the faith more than the other two “Abrahamic” religions. Yet from early times there were Christians who believed in the apokatastasis/ ”restoration”—when the entire universe would be restored to what God intended it to be. In this ultimate climax of redemption there would be no more place for hell. One could put this in rather vanilla-seeming terms: Everyone would really be in heaven then! Obviously this raises the question of the worst evil-doers, and different answers were given. One of the great if controversial Church Fathers apparently believed in the “restoration”—Origen, who taught in Alexandria in the 3rd century CE. There is disagreement about just what Origen really meant—did he believe that eventually even the devil would be saved?—did he believe in the transmigration of souls? But there were enough doubts so that, despite the esteem he was held in, he was not canonized by either the Eastern or the Western Church.

Berger goes on to note the mystic Julian of Norwich’s uncertainties about hell:

More than any other mystic, the English nun Julian of Norwich (1342-1462) kept repeating over and over again that God is love, that he created the world out of love, and that this love keeps the world in being every moment. Julian was preoccupied with the question of how even the devil could be kept in hell forever in a world fully restored to God. She knows that this is what the Church teaches, and she is an obedient daughter of the Church. But she asks God how this can be. He replies that what she cannot understand, he can do. In her little book “Showings”, where she tells of all the things that God showed her in her visions, there follows the passage for which she is best known. I am not quite clear, whether these are supposed to be words spoken by God himself, or Julian’s own words responding to him. They are in the literary form of a lullaby, such as a mother might sing to soothe a frightened child; I guess one might call it a cosmic lullaby: “And all will be well. And all will be well. And every manner of thing will be well.”

(Image of Francesco Botticini’s 15th century painting The Assumption of the Virgin, which offers a glimpse into the heavens, via Wikimedia Commons)

Why Atheists Need To Come Out, Ctd

A reader writes:

I’m enjoying the discussion about atheists and morality. Unlike some of your other atheist readers, I’m not particularly offended that we’re often seen as immoral. It’s fairly obvious that the reason we’re viewed that way by the faithful is that they haven’t had much real-life contact with good, moral atheists. It reminds me very much of how conservatives who haven’t interacted with a real gay person often call that community immoral. It’s simply fear of the unknown. My own experience speaks to this.

I grew up a Christian in the Bible Belt, surrounded by a conservative peer group. In my Christian elementary school, atheism was literally unthinkable – it didn’t even occur to me that people didn’t believe in God. In high school, I met my first atheist, and he was one of the warmest, kindest people I’ve ever met. He was super nerdy like me, and we bonded over our similarities. The fact that someone could be so kind and also not believe in God was somewhat shocking to me at the time.

As I slowly deconverted to atheism during college, I would always think back to him as my model of a truly good atheist.

My own view of morality slowly evolved away from needing a God and towards a naturalistic explanation. We are social animals in a harsh world. To survive, we needed to establish rules of conduct that allow us to work together against the elements – a moral code. No God needed. I do hope that, eventually, this will become the prevailing view.

In order for this to happen, we need more people like my high school friend. We need more atheists who are soft-spoken and genuinely good, loving people who can demonstrate by example that atheists aren’t frightening anarchists. Conversion doesn’t happen in debates or through legislation – evangelicals have known this for a long time. Conversion occurs through many personal interactions over years.

I dislike the approach of the New Atheists not because I disagree with their views, but because their methods push the faithful away from atheism. It’s insanely counterproductive. Who wants to be friends with the self-righteous bully? As much as I love Hitchens’ passion, clear-mindedness, and brutally logical arguments, I think my high school friend was a much better advocate for atheism than Hitchens. And don’t get me started on Dawkins. What a fucking asshole. In the same way that the gay community slowly won the argument by being out and showing that they’re just like the rest of us, we atheists need to be out and demonstrate kindness and love to our neighbors.

By the way, the fact that I’m not completely out tears me apart. My mother is a very devout Christian with an anxiety disorder. I fear that telling her about my true beliefs would cause her enormous emotional strife. She might truly believe I’m going to Hell. Who could put that sort of burden on his mother? I hope that, eventually, our religions will evolve to a more accepting view of atheists, so that people like me won’t have to be in the closet.

Previous Dish on the need for atheists to come out here and here.

A Drink For The Lady

Katy Waldman considers why “bartenders and waitstaff often expect their female customers to order ‘juicy or sweet’ beverages, [while] those who defy convention with a whiskey neat get vaulted to cool-girl glory”:

Only tough people seek out stuff that tastes “bad”—think about the virile rumble in phrases like “stiff drink” and “hard liquor.” Subjecting yourself to strong spirits implies a kind of Trojan indestructibility, as if the really great thing would be if the bar were a Cormac McCarthy novel so you could publicly not care about the apocalypse, but since it’s not, you’ll just have a Jameson.

“Liking hard drinks is related to other indicators of badassery,” says Anna Newby, a Washington, D.C., bartender and Slate contributor. “It’s finding out a girl boxes instead of running for exercise. Why do we care how people work out? But we do.” Newby notes that whole nooks of drinking culture are propped up by the desire to “prove something”—no one assumes that people enjoy keg stands or tequila shots, but they’ll do them for street cred. And yet other types of self-punishing willpower—the feminized kinds—only attract scorn: “I’ve seen people roll their eyes at a table of girls ordering vodka sodas,” Newby says, “which is perceived as the anorexic drink. It’s like, one girl orders it, and they all do.”

(Video: “Girl Drink Drunk” from Kids in the Hall)

But Is It Art?

EJ Dickson toured a sex-doll factory and found a bunch of aesthetes:

“There are other doll brands that go solely for usability,” [Sinthetics owner Matt] Krivicke says as he guides me around the shop. “They think the product is just used for sex, so they design around that parameter. I don’t. The function will always be there, but my intent when I’m starting a sculpture is I want to give it life.” … Hearing the pair talk about their dolls as sculptures, it’s easy to dismiss them as misguided or self-deluded. After all, most sex toys, however expensive or elaborate they might be, are designed solely for one purpose—and are used as such.

Yet looking at the dolls, it’s clear what Sinthetics do is a peculiar mix of art and engineering. They spend at least six months crafting each doll to their client’s specifications (they’ve only made 150 during their three years in business), assembling its skeleton, molding its parts one-by-one, and testing out its range of motion (link NSFW) to ensure no sexual positions will compromise the “integrity of the doll’s internal structure.” Which is not to say they have sex with the dolls themselves. “They’re our silicon family,” Keller says. “That’d just be weird.”

Loving Ladies, Banging Bros, Ctd

A reader writes:

Hi Andrew and Dish team. I’m a bisexual, heteroamorous guy, and I absolutely agree with Dan Savage’s and Charles Pulliam-Moore’s call for bisexual men to be forthright with their partners. The trouble is, as a bisexual, you can’t necessarily know that you’re heteroamorous until you’ve tried and failed – perhaps multiple times – to be bi-amorous. As a younger guy just coming out as bisexual, I genuinely thought I might be romantically attracted to both sexes and that I just hadn’t found the right guy yet. I was very inexperienced with both women and men, and I ended up hurting a couple of guys that I really enjoyed being around (and hooking up with) because the romantic spark I was hoping for never materialized.

That isn’t to absolve bi guys who treat people like shit, or simply with carelessness. I’m guilty of some the latter myself. (Not the former, I hope.) But I think that the emotional scars that some gay men bear from their interactions with bi men can sometimes be attributed to youth and inexperience, rather than dishonesty or fear. Raising awareness of a more accurate definition of bisexuality – one that includes heteroamorousness – is very important, as Savage says. But if forthrightness is bi men’s special responsibility, then I think we can ask for understanding in return, especially for our youthful transgressions.

Another:

I’m a bisexual man in a gay marriage.

My (very gay) husband and I have been together for 12 monogamous years, but prior to that time I dated both men and women in high school and college. My porn and fantasy life continue to include both genders. When someone turns my head on the street, or when I crush on someone at a party, it may be either a woman or a man. I would say that I’m equally bisexual and bi-amorous.

I am definitely not one of those men with “an internal incompatibility between [his] romantic desires and his fear of social judgment,” as your reader put it. If my marriage were over tomorrow, I have no idea whether my next long-term relationship would be with a man or a woman. But either way, social judgment will have nothing to do with it. I was privileged to grow up in a time and place where I was safe and comfortable being completely open from age 16 on about my relationships with both men and women. And today I live in a state that gives my relationships equal footing under the law regardless of who I fall in love with, in a city that practically celebrates my marriage. Thanks to the activism of you and many others who broke down the closet door and showed the world that queer folk are “virtually normal,” in my daily life I experience no social judgment whatsoever about being in a gay relationship.

That makes me wonder whether the traditional-marriage rearguard left a plausible argument on the table in their legal battles. In the string of court cases in recent years, the opponents of marriage equality repeatedly came up with no rational justification whatsoever to keep marriage a heterosexual-only institution. But the argument never really acknowledged the existence of bisexuals.

If “fear of social judgment” is a major factor driving bisexuals into child-producing heterosexual marriages (or keeping them in those marriages) rather than long-term same-sex romances, isn’t it reasonable to expect that tearing down that social judgment will result in fewer child-producing marriages? If I had graduated from high school in the ’70s or ’80s, rather than the late ’90s, isn’t it likely that a bisexual, bi-amorous man like me would have kept my gay trysts secret and ended up married to a woman like the men your reader has been banging?

Excluding gays from marriage has no real rational arguments to back it up, as several courts have held and as a majority of Americans now seem to understand. But doesn’t excluding bisexuals from gay marriage leave them only one available, socially acceptable romantic option, which happens to be the option that may result in bearing children? And if we accept a bisexual, bi-amorous model of human sexuality/amorosity, isn’t that a rational reason to adhere to traditional heterosexual-only marriage?

A female perspective:

I’m a “straight” woman, but the post seemed to be talking about me. It has helped me understand an experience that has left me reeling and confused about my sexuality. I would definitely say that I am “bi-sexual but hetero-amorous.” I’m 29 and I’d never had a sexual experience with a woman, not even so much as a kiss, but I’d always been open to it. It was such a part of me that I sort of thought that everyone felt this way. How could you not want to kiss women? They are so soft and beautiful!

However, it wasn’t something that ever made me question my sexuality, because I was so obviously attracted to men and the thought of dating a woman did nothing for me. I had no desire for it whatsoever. I was perfectly romantically and physically satisfied by men.

A few weeks ago, however, I had a threesome for the first time (two girls and one guy) and it was one of the most satisfying and eye-opening experiences of my life. It was a great experience, but it left me with a lot of questions. I kept wondering: Am I bisexual now? But I have no desire to date a woman, even though having sex with one was amazing and satisfying. Am I terrible person? Someone who only wanted to have sex with women but didn’t want to date them? Reading that other people have experience this same kind of disconnect between their emotional and sexual desires has helped me put this experience in context.