It's pretty clear that that "worship" here refers to where we practice focusing our heart's yearnings, not to a set of religious rites. Synonyms of this meaning of "worship" include "revere" and "venerate".
No. Because he opens his thought with saying that "Atheism" doesn't exist. Atheism isn't a rejection of "yearning" or "reverence". It's a rejection of religion.
He's just playing word games, and you are falling for it.
I absolutely agree. It's just your typical pseudo-intellectualism rant here. It starts with a provocative declaration and then backed up with some explanation that is technically true, but doesn't offer any actual insights or value.
That would be anti-theism, or "strong atheism", though. It's the difference between "not holding any belief related to the existence of a god", and "holding the belief that there is no god".
Not to be confused with "agnosticism" which is "holding the belief that it cannot be known whether there is a god".
He is playing word games, but he's not trying to trick anyone. When he says atheism doesn't exist, it's just a stylistic flourish. It's not the point of the passage; he's not trying to argue that everyone believes in god.
The point of the passage is that everyone needs a source of meaning in their life, and that religious is more psychologically healthy option than the alternatives.
> When he says atheism doesn't exist, it's just a stylistic flourish. It's not the point of the passage; he's not trying to argue that everyone believes in god.
It's not trolling if the audience is intended to see the true meaning. The speech was given to a group of students graduating a liberal arts college. It's a group of people that would appreciate literary devices that don't beat you over the head.
I think you've already fallen for literalness as the only way to interpret or value anything. Which is unfortunate because all of the momentous truths in life (ie, that matter to corporeal beings, to us) are not of the literal variety. You probably know this on some buried level but you cling to the literalness anyway. Why?
DFW is making a compelling point. The words were taken from his magnificent "This is water" commencement address at Kenyon College in the early naughts.
He’s a writer, sure, but that doesn’t mean that bad writing is not fair game for criticism. Redefining words is a common technique in this style of apologetics to avoid having to engage with an argument intellectually and it being used by a famous writer doesn’t make it more worthy.
No it isn't. I'm sorry but not all writing needs pedants nitpicking to get the point across. The point is extremely clear and you can argue about the nuance but there is no hidden meaning or contradiction here.
As evidenced by this entire thread, the point isn't extremely clear _because_ of the writing. I don't think it's just a question of nuance, either, both because he was far too skilled a writer to be unfamiliar with common English vocabulary and it's very much following in a tradition of writing from people who are uncomfortable with wanting to believe in something which they can't justify on the evidence (the very definition of religious faith — see e.g. Hebrews 11:1). Some people react to that by rejecting facts but others take an approach of basically arguing that nobody is purely rational and therefore they can believe what they want, giving them carte blanche to believe things they suspect but don't want to admit are just human creations. As a former fundamentalist, I've seen quite a few examples of that — a very popular one is trying to equate faith or relief in science as being equivalent to their religious counterparts.
Given DFW's history of depression, having rejected his parents' atheism, and having relied on AA in his struggle with addition, I am quite inclined to believe that the latter explanation is true in this case as well. I can understand why he wanted to have a special belief system which would be constructive as a break from the painful destructive behavior he was all too familiar with but that makes it the desperate longings of a broken person rather than a divine truth.
The point is much more clear when taken in context with the longer speech. When taken out of context it confuses the central point.
The statement about atheists not existing is hyperbole used in passing. He doesn't mean there is absolutely no difference between religious and unreligious people. He means they are often similar in non-obvious ways.
The central point of the full speech is that people should be intentional about what they choose to think and care about. It's not too far from stoicism which seems pretty popular in SV/HN.
The chain of points from this passage back to this central point are:
- Atheists and religious people are similar in that they both have a need to find meaning in their life.
- The alternatives that people find for sources of meaning (power, money, looks, etc) are often psychologically harmful.
- These harmful sources of meaning are often adopted by us unconsciously ("by default").
- It is important to be intentional about what we care about because if we are not, we will default to the harmful sources of meaning.
I agree that there is likely some projection of DFW's own psychological issues onto non-religious people at large, and that a lot of people can live happy lives without some form of veneration.
On the other hand, I think his advice is useful for some. I personally find his message about choosing your values intentionally valuable.
----
Even when taken in context, I admit his writing isn't super clear to a general audience. DFW was fond of experimental writing and also believed that writing should be tailored to the audience. His audience in this case was a liberal arts college, so he may have felt comfortable stretching his use of language.
> The alternatives that people find for sources of meaning (power, money, looks, etc) are often psychologically harmful.
This why I generally lean towards the “sloppy writing” conclusion — it is indeed useful to consider your values carefully, but trying to dunk on atheists both confused the language and lead to the incorrect claim that religious beliefs are less harmful than secular ones which is easily disproven by talking to people who were mistreated by friends or family members who saw that as a religious requirement (e.g. many gay people) or whose religion embraced the same harmful behaviors (e.g. some state religions or cults, the prosperity gospel, etc.).
Better writing could avoid that distraction by focusing on the common harmful classes of behavior and how to recognize those patterns in any particular system. I don’t see this as experimental language use because it’s so far from novel in this particular context and the net effect is to obscure the point rather than reach some deeper understanding.
What positive outcome did you expect from a late reply containing nothing of substance? You’ve had 4 days to overcome the initial emotional reaction, why not try for something more?
No substance? Come on now, I thought it clearly communicated my opinion that you were being pedantic in focusing so narrowly on the denotations of English words. Words like "worship" often define fuzzy concepts and do not define things as precise as a function signature. The response to the original quote is so silly to me that I am compelled to continue replying. To ignore the quote's thrust and have your reading be short circuited by its "redefining" of words, especially given that it is a snippet of a wider work, making the initial criticism all the sillier, is too fun to ignore.
If someone is a fiction writer, we shouldn't care what they have to say? Sure. Then let's agree his quote is worthless.
But I'd still argue the opposite. This is a fiction writer who obviously is listened to. He's famous. He's quoted by random people on the internet. And those quotes are taken from speeches that he was presumably paid to give. Words are his profession. It's not correct to say that just because he doesn't do journalism that his words have no impact on reality.
On the contrary, because he is a writer, we should be especially wary of his words. His words are meant to convince you of a point. You can't just ignore his goals and say it's poetry.
His goal is to convince you that Atheism is bad, and he suggests that all atheists worship "something" that will destroy them (since it obviously isn't God, one of the only carve outs he leaves for worship that won't destroy you).
In the context of the above article, the point is crystal clear. The quote was posted with it's intended meaning: that atheists are nothing more than people who "worship" the material. That's bullshit. That's not what atheism is, and Wallace is being disingenuous.
Hyperbole. Of course atheism exists, but its used as an engaging opener.
Contrary to some other comments in this thread, the people complaining about the literal truth value are the ones falling for the author’s writing technique, not the other way around.
Don’t interpret it literally. Its used to assemble an idea that anything can be worshipped/venerated, not to make the argument that atheism doesn’t exist.
No, I agree he's equivocating and creating a false dichotomy. Wallace struggled with addiction and alcoholism much of his life, and said that AA was a powerful force in attempting to turn his life around. So it's not surprising that he sees religion and materialistic self-destruction as two sides of one coin. For an atheist who is not particularly self-destructive and content with his choices in life, the quote above reads as not overly insightful outside of explaining Wallace's character.
This redefining of the word worship do not work at all for me. We do not worship cooking food. The words do not describe well a hobby. It is negative associated with personal relationships. Worshiping a pet sound crazy.
It's worth pointing out that this equivalence is only possible in the English language (and maybe other Germanic languages?) where apparently the word worship means a lot of concepts (adoration, veneration, reverence) that in Romance languages are actually separate. In fact, the disagreement over this words is one of the most important differences between Catholicism and Protestantism.
I don't know how does this distinction work in other religions, but based on Wikipedia[1] it looks like adoration, veneration and reverence may also be different on many of them.
This is the most interesting take on this thread. What is otherwise a lot of atheists misunderstanding the English usage of worship by religious people and those familiar with them.
The crux of organized religion is being so vague that an individual can pick whatever parts of it fits into their own self-image. Thats what OP is tapping into in their quote. The Bible is re-written every 100 years to accommodate this.
>>"The Bible is re-written every 100 years to accommodate this."
This is provably false.
"It cannot be too strongly asserted that in substance the text of the Bible is certain: Especially is this the case with the New Testament, of early translations from it, and of quotations from it in the oldest writers of the Church, is so large that it is practically certain that the true reading of every doubtful passage is preserved in some one or other of these ancient authorities. This can be said of no other ancient book in the world."[1]
As an example, the New Testament is 25x more accurately copied across manuscripts than the Iliad [2].
"The variant readings about which any doubt remains among textual critics of the New Testament affect no material question of historic fact or of Christian faith and practice."[3]
[1] Kenyon, "Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts", p. 23
[2] Bruce M. Metzger, "Chapters in the History of New Testament Textual Criticism", cited by Geisler and Nix, "A General Introduction to the Bible", pp. 366f
[3] F.F. Bruce, "The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?" p. 15
I believe he meant that the collective interpretation of mainstream religious leaders changes over time and is radically different from one century to the next.
Exactly. Just look at how the attitude to homosexuality has shifted in the church (which I think is a great thing). They didn’t change the text, but they changed the emphasis and the oral sermons.
That doesn’t hold water either, or Thomas Aquinas wouldn’t still be considered by so many as “the highest expression of both natural reason and speculative theology” and the basis for modern clergical study.
It definitely does hold water. Here are several examples.
Until the Counter-reformation, Catholics were not allowed to lend money at interest due to the ancient prohibition against usury. After that point Catholic doctrine was changed to say that this was one of the commandments for the ancient Jews that was not intended for Christians. The Bible didn't change, but doctrine did. (This despite the fact that the only point in the Bible where Jesus is portrayed as acting angrily was throwing the moneychangers out of the temple. And why was their presence wrong? Because they were engaged in usury!)
The doctrine of papal infallibility is accepted by all Catholics today. Yet it was not part of Catholic doctrine until 1870.
Until 1616, the Catholic Church had no official doctrine on astronomy. In fact Copernicus dedicated his book to the Pope. And then the Copernican theory was ruled contrary to scripture. Catholics were banned from reading various books about it. A century later, the bans on the books were lifted. A century after that, the Catholic Church declared that the Copernican theory was in accord with scripture.
In all of these cases Scripture didn't change. Jesus still threw the moneylenders out of the temple for usury. Peter still received the keys to heaven. And Joshua bid the Sun to stand still, and not the Earth. But the beliefs that people had based on these passages /did/ change.
A minor point, Jesus has anger issues a number of times in the Bible, not just with the moneylenders. As an example, the time he got mad at a tree for not having fruit and cursed it to never bear fruit again.
>As an example, the time he got mad at a tree for not having fruit and cursed it to never bear fruit again.
A tree that was out of season, no less.
And this happens immediately before the verse where he chases out the moneylenders.
And on the way back, they pass the withered fig tree again and one of the disciples points it out and Jesus says "Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them,"
Misc points of doctrine are not really the “collective interpretation” as if fundamentals were changing, and the comment to which I replied said “radically different”.
None of your examples feel like radically different Catholicism, except perhaps the papal infallibility thing, though even that seems it was generally believed, but not categorically, before being written down and today is generally believed, but not categorically, so, not radically different.
