http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/sam_harris/2008/07/the_boundaries_of_belief.html

(pg. 136) “Is it even clear what “God is” statements mean? Echoing Bill Clinton, I note that they depend on what the meaning of “is” is. Here, for example, are three possible meanings of “is” involving God: (1) God is complexity; (2) God is omniscient; (3) there is a God. The first “is” is the “is” of identity; it’s symbolized by G = C. The second “is” is the “is” of predication; G has the property of omniscience, symbolized by O(G). The third “is” is existential, there is or there exists, an entity that is God-like, symbolized by ?xG(x). (It’s not hard to equivocally move back and forth between these meanings of “is” to arrive at quite dubious conclusions. For example, from “God is love,” “Love is blind,” and “My father’s brother is blind,” we might conclude, “There is a God, and he is my uncle.”)

Absolutely… a while back evangelical historian Mark Noll wrote an indictment of this very fact entitled “The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind”. But it’s not just conservative evangelicals but conservatives in general. People who get educated tend to turn “liberal”, so conservatives have decided that education itself is not to be trusted.

I remember that book. I don’t think I read the whole thing; I remember skimming through it in the library one day when it came out. As I recall, Noll’s argument was that the evangelical subculture hadn’t produced an outstanding intellectual since Jonathan Edwards – and you can imagine what I think of him!

I agree about conservatives in general. Secular conservatives don’t want to spend money on education (or much else apart from the military), and religious conservatives consider it irrelevant. We’re in a lot of trouble.

Alternatively, they may just not have any idea what atheism means, in which case why do Hemant and Susan go so far as to call them atheists? Anyone is welcome to join the atheist club, but you must accept that there is no god, or that one is extremely unlikely (however you like to put it, but you certainly can’t believe in one). These people are clearly ignorant of this premise, so why call them atheist? Religion may not be well defined, but atheism is.

Come to think of it, I actually know an atheist who claims to believe in god. What he means is not that he accepts the reality of god as the creator of our universe, but that since other people believe in it, god exists as a mental construct. This always struck me as particularly annoying metaphysical quibble, as it misuses the word believe.

Another possibility is that these people are using the word god in the Einsteinian sense. In that case, they are pantheists who define god to be the universe, nothing more or less. Also irritating, in my opinion, as it uses a loaded word in a benign context and gives rise to lots of misconceptions.

I wonder if prolonged affluence and general peace tends to make people stupid?

I think it permits them to become lazy and sloppy about things in general, including their own language. They no longer give their language or even their own statements a place of honor, as one would on a horse’s ass.

Mike, I think you’re correct, although I’d also throw in the absolutely abysmal state of American education. We are the laughing stock of the other industrialized nations.

That’s true too. If we actually taught kids that learning is fun, rather than a series of hoops to jump through so that administrators can keep their federal funding maybe our kids would be less ignorant.

Would you also agree that conservative evangelicals have, over the past twenty years, contributed to the fostering of a climate of anti-intellectualism?

Absolutely… a while back evangelical historian Mark Noll wrote an indictment of this very fact entitled “The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind”. But it’s not just conservative evangelicals but conservatives in general. People who get educated tend to turn “liberal”, so conservatives have decided that education itself is not to be trusted.

If I want to be understood by someone else I am going to have to comply with the conventions, the social agreements about the meanings of the words I choose to use. If I want to use words in an unconventional way and still be understood, then I must precede with an explanation to those with whom I want to communicate which of my terms I will be using in ways that do not comply with convention.

If however, I wish merely to express myself then I am free to use my words any which way I please. For instance, I would not need to warn anyone that heretofore will say ” a horse’s ass” whenever I mean what others mean when they say “plinth.”

Now before you click on your online dictionary to remind yourselves what a horse’s ass is, consider the significance of a dictionary. It is a collection of conventions and social agreements about the meanings of the words our society uses. When we are not quite sure what a horse’s ass is we trust our linguistic specialists to properly standardize our words into a book that does not change constantly but will remain current and up-to-date for several years. So we can feel confident that what is a horse’s ass today will still be a horse’s ass the next time we can’t remember and have to go look up a horse’s ass. We agree to let this reference authority rule over our language, and that power we give it is no small matter.

People live and die for words. We hold ourselves and each other very strictly accountable to the socially understood meanings of our words. People are convicted of crimes, imprisoned and even executed because the meanings of their words are taken seriously. When the witness breaks down under Perry Mason’s grilling and says, “Yes! I killed him! And I’m glad, do you hear? Glad, glad, glad!” he’s not going to be able to defend himself later by claiming that by those words he actually meant, “You know, on second thought I’d rather have a latte.” No, he’ll be getting the gas chamber rather than a latte.

The problem with my merely expressing myself when talking about the architectural uses of a horse’s ass is that someone else may overhear me or may be eavesdropping on my conversation with my friend who also knows what a horse’s ass is to me. Then I can get in trouble because they may take great exception to how I use a horse’s ass.

I’m all for using our languages “creatively” and for allowing them to grow and evolve, but if our purpose is to actually communicate an idea accurately to another person, then our creativity has to remain within the bounds of the present (and always slowly developing) conventions. Otherwise grope and all words Model T Ford spontaneously change nose chameleons knock first whatever whim dictates, belly button lint understanding will be lost. There will insouciant only self crumpets.