Last week, New Jersey governor Chris Christie addressed questions from the press about his recent appointment of Sohail Mohammed to the state bench. Mr. Mohammed is a Muslim, and apparently there has been some popular criticism of the appointment decision:
Had I been in Christie’s place, I might have said something like this:
“Yes. It’s absolutely true that Mr. Mohammed’s intellect and judgment are called into serious question by virtue of the fact that he is a Muslim. Absolutely, we should be worried. The same is true for any other judge who is a Christian, a Jew, a Hindu, a Buddhist, or any other religion. The cognitive abilities of all religious people are seriously compromised by their commitments to dogmatic faith. Unfortunately, the state of New Jersey is not lucky enough to have a large enough number of atheists to staff all the jobs where an ability to reason is necessary. So we’ll have to take what we can get. What I can tell you, after knowing Mr. Mohammed personally for nine years, is that he is no more compromised by his religion than any run-of-the-mill Protestant or Catholic. I’m sure he’ll do as good a job as anyone else we’re likely to be able to find.”
“Beware the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.” – The Books of Bokonon (a.k.a. Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut)
In discussing his new study on Cognition, Religion, and Theology, Oxford author Roger Trigg said of religious belief (according to CNN), "If you’ve got something so deep-rooted in human nature, thwarting it is in some sense not enabling humans to fulfill their basic interests."
Absolutely right. I would add that the instinct to bash rocks into the faces of people we dislike is also deep-rooted. People in cultures from all over the world, from time immemorial, have used violence to express their frustrations. This universality suggests–and I’m sure Professor Trigg would agree with me here–that thwarting such instincts with restrictions like moral instruction, laws, and criminal prosecution is a hindrance to our fulfillment of a basic need.
This sentiment has a history on Oxford’s little island:
Safe in the hand of one disposing Pow’r,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see
All discord, harmony not understood,
All partial evil, universal good:
And, spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, whatever is, is right.
(excerpt from Essay on Man, by Alexander Pope)
Perhaps this is asking too much of a Templeton scholar, but Herr Trigg, please say something smarter next time.
If you’re in the Portland area, come see my lecture this week, sponsored by Intel and also advertised by the Center for Inquiry. The talk is free and open to the public.
Title: The Scientific Worldview: Where the Beautiful meets the Practical. When: Wed-20-April, 12:00pm – 1:00pm Where: Intel Corp, 2111 Northeast 25th Avenue Hillsboro, OR. JFCC auditorium. Summary: There are two main benefits of science. The first, and for many people the only benefit, is technology in all its forms. By better understanding the world, we become better able to manipulate it to produce food and shelter, products, medicines, etc. The other benefit of science, more rarefied, is the aesthetic and even spiritual thrill of understanding the intricate structures and patterns of the world. In this talk, we’ll explore the intersection of these types of benefits and try to arrive at an evolutionary perspective on the role of their convergence on human behavior. Details:http://www.meetup.com/cfi-portland/events/17142887/
