CHAPTER 3 - HISTORY UNTIL TODAY

After the Greeks had shone their light on the world, the world stage was set for the interplay of the three major philosophies. Barbarism had existed from the dawn of man, from the time people robbed, killed, raped, or injured others when they felt like doing it.  Monotheistic Religion had as its main emissaries the Jews and their Bible, who promulgated the concept that there was one God who commands us to be good and to be more mindful of the spiritual aspect of life.  And the Greeks let flower the concept we call Scientific, that man with his mind can achieve understanding of himself and the world through reason and careful examination.  As we have shown, the three philosophies looked at the world very differently, and they competed for the mind of Man. A major element of  history is the story of this competition. 

Up until today, many amalgams of the three philosophies have been formed, trying to combine what was seen as strengths of each.  Very often the intertwining of ideas is subtle, and it is difficult to tweeze apart which elements of a philosophy or culture came from each of the three major philosophies.  We'll briefly mention a few major amalgams.

Rome

The rise of Rome occurred soon after the decline of Greece, and built much of its cultural ideas on an admiration of Greek philosophy, art, and politics.  But Rome combined this with a desire for power and domination that makes it an amalgam of Science and Barbarism.  In fact it used its Greek rationality to help it achieve and maintain its Barbaric goal of world power.  The Romans were excellent builders and administrators, abilities that come from the Greek reliance on reason.  But its lack of shame and unabashed pursuit of control and pleasure come from the Barbarian philosophical viewpoint.  Its rationality that springs from the Greek side of its culture helped it maintain a 'Pax Romana' (Roman Peace) for 200 years, during which it controlled most of the known world.  But the Barbaric side of its culture contributed to its tendency for hedonism and cruelty, and led to a moral decay that eventually made the Roman Empire disintegrate. 

Christianity

Christianity was born when Rome was at its pinnacle of power, and flourished as Rome died its slow death. Christianity, obviously, springs mainly from the Religious philosophical tradition of the Jews. The founders of Christianity were Jewish, and regarded Monotheism as the bedrock of their new religion.  With regard to Barbarism of dissolute Rome, they responded very negatively, and many of Christianity's early adherents were drawn to Christianity because of their revulsion to the Barbaric side of Roman culture.  To the extent that Rome was hedonistic, Christianity's asceticism was the opposite.  Though Christianity always places faith above reason, it borrowed some aspects of Greek philosophy.  Its tendency towards theology, the philosophy of religion, is borrowed from the Greek love of examination.  And its goal of proselytizing and spreading the 'word' comes from the Greek belief that Man can become enlightened when he is taught the correct way of looking at the world.  Therefore, Christianity is an amalgam of mostly the Religious perspective with certain aspects of the Greek perspective.  Added to that was a strong anti-Barbarism and anti-hedonism that gave their religion, at least initially, a decidedly 'other worldly' tone.

Islam

In the 6th century the other major Monotheistic religion, Islam, was born in the Middle East.  Mohammed, outraged by the unholy attitudes among Arabs, preached the Religious injunction that people should dedicate themselves to fulfilling God's will and strive towards holiness.  He added, however, that anger and violence were positive means of spreading the holy word.  In a sense, Mohammed took the attribute of force that is often associated with Barbarism, and raised it to the level of holiness when used to eliminate the 'infidel' and spread the knowledge and practice of God.  This new twist gave the Moslems enormous power, and within a century they had conquered and converted - under the threat of the sword and 'Jihad' (religious war) - almost the entire Middle East and Northern Africa.

Dark and Middle Ages

As the Roman Empire aged, the Roman blend of Science and Barbarism was tending toward greater percentages of Barbarism.  As if in reaction to the increase in Roman debauchery and cruelty, Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in 315 and declared Christianity as the official religion of Rome.  But the Roman Empire also had to contend with real Barbarians at the gates, made up of Huns, Visigoths, Celts, and Vandals, among others, who constantly attacked the Roman legions.  In the 6th century, the Roman Empire fell to these Barbarian hordes, who destroyed and pillaged everything in their path.  The centuries that followed are known as the Dark Ages, in which almost all people were illiterate, the average life span was about 20 years, and there was almost no civilization as we know it.  Life was mean and short, and this gives an inkling to what the world is like when the Barbarians are in control. Partly because many people felt the need for more than Barbarism, the Christian Church, based in Rome, became stronger, and sent out its missionaries to spread the 'word' of Religion to the masses.  Starting around the year 1000, there were a series of great religious wars, called the Crusades, where Christian Europe sent armies to battle the Moslems in the Middle East. Throughout this period the mind of Western man was an amalgam of Religion and Barbarism.

In the 13th century the Far East received a hefty dose of Barbarism, when Ghenghiz Khan took a small Mongolian tribe and built it into an empire that included China, Russia, Northern India, the Middle East, and Europe as far as Hungary. He did it by motivating his warriors with the clearly enunciated Barbarian philosophy: "The greatest joy a man can know is to kill his enemies, take away their possessions, clasp their women in his arms, and see those women bedewed with tears."  His grandson, Kubla Khan, started a dynasty that ruled China for over 300 years.

The Renaissance

Italy in the 14th century became a center of trade that enabled it to accumulate enough wealth to support a leisure class.  These nobles and the literati they funded had time to rediscover and think about the Greek classics and the 'Scientific' philosophy that had lain dormant for many centuries.  The refocusing of attention towards the Greek consideration of the nobility of Man and the power of Man's mind produced a burst of light similar to that engendered by the Greeks themselves 1600 years before. The philosophy and art that was reborn in the Italian Renaissance subsequently spread to the rest of Europe and England in the next few centuries.

The Greek emphasis on reason and examination became the germ of what we today call the Scientific Method, where all assumptions are thrown aside in the pursuit of what is verifiably true through objective experimentation.  Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), during the English Renaissance, wrote forcefully that man mustn't let old assumptions stand in his way, but must examine reality carefully to determine what is true:

"Knowledge is power." (Sacred Meditations)

"If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties." (The Advancement of Learning)  

"The best method of "searching into and discovering truth... derives axioms from the senses and particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most general axioms last of all.  This is the true way, but as yet untried." (Novuum Organuum)

The Enlightenment

Utilizing the tool of reason advocated by the Greek 'Scientific' perspective yielded an enormous amount to Man's knowledge, as we enter the period called the Enlightenment, about 1600 to 1800.  Galileo (1564-1642), who perfected the telescope and made discoveries about the planets, said:

"Facts which at first seem improbable will, even on scant explanation, drop the cloak which has hidden them and stand forth in naked and simple beauty".

"The universe... is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures."

Chemical elements were discovered in the laboratory, the microscope revealed secrets about biology, and inventions such as the steam engine gave rise to the industrial revolution which greatly increased people's standard of living.

This scrutiny included, not only nature, but all aspects of man's life. Adam Smith (1723-1790) examined man's economic life to propose how the free market system can work to increase man's wealth.  John Locke (1632-1704) proposed that government is best when it gives its people liberty, an idea that heavily influenced the founding fathers of the grand social experiment called the United States.  And art and music thrived with the reawakened feeling of man's abilities and potential. 

An enormous scientific breakthrough occurred when Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) invented calculus and discovered the laws of gravity that explained how a common set of mathematical laws govern the movement of heavenly bodies and objects on Earth.  Alexander Pope (1688-1744) wrote:

"Nature, and Nature's laws lay hid in night:

God said, Let Newton be!, and all was light". 

Religion vs. Science

The Enlightenment was one of the only periods in Man's history that saw a true partnership between Religion and Science.  The great Religions, over the millennia, had garnered considerable respect as a civilizing influence over the Barbarian tendency in Man, and in Europe, for example, the Catholic and Protestant Churches had a great deal of moral and political power.  In addition, Science's great advances during this period, in explaining the physical phenomena in the world and providing tools that increase Man's wealth and power, gave Science an enormous amount of respect and even awe. 

For most people, this mutual respect for Religion and Science were not contradictory.  On the contrary, many saw the grand designs of the universe as evidence of brilliant designs of the Creator, from the 'music of the heavenly spheres' in their geometric dances explained by Newton, to the intricate workings of the human body.  In fact, the great majority of Enlightenment thinkers were religious men, finding little conflict between faith and reason.  This partnership between Religion and Science gave considerable hope to Mankind that the destructive Barbarian could be kept at bay.

But alas, a cloud appeared on the horizon, that grew larger and darker as time progressed.  Inevitably, there were thinkers that legitimately focused their spotlight of objective reason and experimentation on the subject of Religion itself.  It was, as Yogi Berra said, 'Deja Vu all over again', creating the seeds of conflict similar to that experienced between the Jews and Greeks 1900 years earlier.  Scientific men looked at Religion and asked:

   What is the spiritual world that Religion talks so much about?

   What is the source of the moral commandments that tells man to be good?

   Where is the soul?

   What is God?

Some in the Church tried to meet the problem head on, and stifle reason and restrict Science.  For example, Galileo was put on trial for maintaining that the Earth is not the center of the solar system (seemingly implied by a strict literal reading of the Bible), and after recanting under threat of death, lived under house arrest for most of the remainder of his life.  Martin Luther (1483-1546) had voiced the fear of the Church years earlier: 

"Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but - more frequently than not - struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God."

Hume and  Kant

The Church's rearguard action against Science was doomed to eventual failure, because of the tremendous successes and resulting respect that Science was achieving.  And just as they feared, some thinkers began to ridicule religion as being 'unscientific'. These thinkers claimed that skepticism about Religion was justified because they felt that Science had looked for the spiritual world, the soul, and God, and had come up empty handed.  Science, they said, could find no evidence for the existence of these principles that Religion is founded on.  The Scientific Method, they said, demands that assumptions be thrown aside and that we believe only what can be shown with repeated experimentation, and that we should examine Religion with this same discerning eye.

An example of this anti-religious position was taken by the English philosopher David Hume (1711-1776). He called religion 'superstition', and advocated that philosophers should go about "opposing one species of superstition to another, set them a-quarreling; while we ourselves, during their fury and contention, happily make our escape into the calm, though obscure, regions of philosophy." (The Natural History of Religion).  He concluded that, "Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous" (A treatise of Human Nature).

Hume threw down the gauntlet, challenging Religion to prove itself.  He agreed that people sometimes improve their moral behavior when they believe in the 'fairy tales' of Religion, but that an intelligent man should be able to get along without that crutch.

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) wrote that when he read Hume's attack on Religion, he saw red, and that it took him 11 years to come up with an answer to those attacks.  Kant not only was a very religious Lutheran, but he saw that the moral compass that religion provides is essential for the maintenance of civilization.  Kant proposed that there are two worlds, the physical and the 'metaphysical', the latter being the intangible domain of the soul and God.  He said that this metaphysical realm is governed by a set of laws just as scientific as the Newtonian laws that govern the physical world.  One of the main laws, that determined what was right and wrong, he called the 'categorical imperative':

"There is only a single categorical imperative and it is this: Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. (The Metaphysic of Morals)

In short, if you want to know if it's 'good' to double park during the rush hour, imagine that it was a universal law that everyone must double park during the rush hour.  If the universal law results in good, then it's OK for you to do it. If not, the action is wrong.

"Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe...:the starry heavens above me, and the moral law within me."  (Critique of Practical Reason)

The 19th Century

Though Kant's attempt to defend Religion was valiant, the 19th century saw a gradual erosion of Religion's power, especially among the 'enlightened', those who prided themselves on being Scientific.  Science waxed, and Religion waned.  Science was producing such a cornucopia of discoveries and technology, that there was a prevalent belief that Utopia was just around the corner, led by the advancements of Science and the enlightened mind of Man.  Religion was seen by many as the fount of superstition that would actually impede man's march towards Utopia. 

A telling image is described in R.R. Palmer's marvelous book 'Twelve Who Ruled', about Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety that ruled France after the French Revolution.  When Robespierre felt that his Reign of Terror had eliminated the retrograde forces holding back progress, he staged a parade in Paris where he built a mountain called the 'Mountain of Reason', and everyone dressed in Greek costumes as they marched towards this symbol of man's glorious ability for Rationality that would usher in the golden age.  Robespierre must have miscalculated, because within a few months the Reign of Terror continued with a vengeance, throwing France into chaos, Robespierre himself dying on the guillotine.  The 'Greek' Rationalists felt that they could lead Man towards the light without the help of Religion, but the Barbarians resurfaced and destroyed their plans.

Later in the century, Karl Marx  (1818-1883) proposed a similar image of the future, rejecting Religion as the 'opiate of the masses', and maintaining that Religion was an anachronism that just befuddled the enlightened mind with superstition and must be obliterated entirely.  His 'Scientific Materialism' claimed that Man's rationality, in seeing the class struggle clearly, would inevitably inspire Man to eliminate the 'bad Capitalistic classes', that would result  in the ideal future brought about by Science alone. 

As the 19th century progressed, the belief grew steadily that science by itself had the power to redeem Man from whatever darkness shackled him.  At least among the intellectuals, religion was seen more and more as 'unscientific' baggage from the past that was best jettisoned in the march towards Man's Utopian future. The Reform movement in Judaism proclaimed that only those parts of their religion that 'made sense' after rational scrutiny would remain.  And Sigmund Freud reported on how he was using scientific rationality to explore the inner workings of Man's mind itself. It was felt that Science and reason would soon fill Man's mind with clarity, light, and happiness.

Darwin and Nietzsche

But then one of the most bizarre events in the history of philosophy occurred.  In 1859 Charles Darwin published a startling book called 'On the Origin of the Species'.  Darwin had been a naturalist on board the H.M.S. Beagle, a British boat that was exploring the Galapagos Islands off the western coast of South America.  Based on the enormous varieties of plants and animals he saw there, Darwin formulated his theory of evolution.  He maintained that animal life on earth had progressed from the lowliest forms through a kind of war called 'natural selection', 'the struggle for existence', and 'the survival of the fittest'. 

"Each organic being is striving to increase in a geometric ratio... [it] has to struggle for life and to suffer great destruction... The vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply...From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows."

This theory affected the intellectual battle between Religion, Science, and Barbarism in two very important ways.  First, it maintained that Man evolved from monkeys and other lower forms of life, in seeming direct contradiction to the Biblical account that God created man directly. 

But even more important, though Darwin himself never said this, for many it confirmed the Barbarian's view of the world, and gave scientific justification for the Barbarian's actions.  These people interpreted Darwin's theory as implying that the strong Barbarian man was the vehicle of Man's progress, eliminating through his violence the weak and the infirm, those not 'fit' to survive.  The Barbarian was seen as 'good', and the wars and violence the Barbarian perpetrated was seen as similar to the wars of the jungle that eventually produced higher forms of life. The Barbarian was suddenly transformed from the destructive and evil menace to society that Religion had painted him as, into the vanguard of progress, pruning away the undesirable and weak elements of society that retard progress.  For many, this turning of the Barbarian into a 'hero' was verified by Science.

At the forefront of this new philosophical position was the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900).  He maintained that Darwin's theories could liberate man from the shackles of conscience and religion and go 'beyond good and evil'.  He said that religion - both Christianity and its Jewish roots - reflected a debased servile mentality that was a plot by the weak to oppress the strong. 

"I call Christianity the one great curse, the one enormous and innermost perversion... I call it the one immortal blemish of mankind." (The Antichrist)

He proclaimed that 'God is dead', and in His place we should pay respect to the 'Superman', the glorious victor of the jungle who is motivated by the 'will to power'. 

In 'The Genealogy of Morals', he says "The sick are the greatest danger for the healthy; it is not from the strongest that harm comes to the strong, but from the weakest."  Compassion for the sick and guilt about eliminating them is the real 'evil' that holds back Man's progress.  Instead he glorified the 'master races', and 'at the core of all these aristocratic races the beast of prey is not to be mistaken, the magnificent blond beast, avidly rampant for spoil and victory."

The Twentieth Century

As we enter the 20th century, we see the philosophical terrain has been completely transformed compared to the Enlightenment just 150 years earlier. No longer does Science and Religion have a partnership to keep the Barbarian at bay.  Instead, Science had become extremely skeptical of Religion's belief in God and the soul, deeming it unproven and unscientific hearsay.  The advances of Science had made it increasingly confident that Reason, without Religion, was the path to the golden age of peace and plenty.  This would prove to be a mere chimera, partly because the Barbarian was on the warpath, greatly emboldened by the likes of Nietzsche who claimed that Science verified that the Barbarian was correct, good, and history's hero.  Being pummeled by Science and the Barbarian, Religion was thoroughly defensive and on the ropes.

Into this melee stepped the American Philosopher William James (1842-1910), preaching what he called 'pragmatism'  He claimed that we should be religious, even though it's not scientific, because it makes our lives better.

"We can act as if there were a God; ...consider Nature as if she were full of special designs; lay plans as if we were to be immortal; and we find then that these words do make a genuine difference in our moral life. (The Varieties of Religious Experience).

This doesn't make us any less scientific because "the evidence for God lies primarily in inner personal experiences."

By and large, as the 20th century progressed,  James' belief in the 'pragmatism' of Religion did little to sway the Scientist, who felt more powerful on his own as his tools discovered more about nature and led to more technology.  In fact, some claimed that the essential challenge to Man in life is to live without a crutch of believing in an unproven God, and to develop within this cosmic vacuum one's own morality.  Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980), one of the proponents of this philosophy of Existentialism, put it this way:

"Man can will nothing unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth." (Being and Nothingness)

Without Religion, Sartre felt a cosmic emptiness: "Everything is gratuitous, this garden, this city, and myself.  When you suddenly realize it, it makes you feel sick and everything begins to drift... that's nausea." (La Nausee 1938)

With Religion attacked from all sides, and the Scientist asserting that morality is relative, it was inevitable for the Barbarian - who felt that Science was on his side - to take charge.  Armed with the new technology of war developed by the Scientist, in just a few years Adolf Hitler killed 25 million people and Joseph Stalin killed 50 million people.  The irony is that they both did it in the name of 'progress'.  Hitler felt empowered by the Nietzschean belief in the primacy of the 'master race'.  And Stalin did it in the name of Marx's 'scientific materialism'.  

As Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf: "It is true we Germans are barbarians, that is an honored title to us.  I free humanity from the shackles of the soul; from the degrading suffering caused by the false vision called conscience and ethics."

Today

Where do we stand today in the struggle between the three major philosophical archetypes?  After Hitler and Stalin, the world was collectively stunned by the enormous destructive power of the technologically armed Barbarian, especially a Barbarian confident that he is doing 'good'.  The thought of such a Barbarian using nuclear armaments to 'cleanse' the world of his enemies has made us all shudder. 

The Scientist is puzzled why increased knowledge and technology has not brought about his Utopia, and is unhappy that many of the tools he created has been used for destructive purposes by the Barbarian.  But he sees little alternative than to hope that further enlightenment and plenty will bring it about. 

The Barbarian is no longer claiming that killing millions of people will bring about progress, but he is alive and hearty in the social arena, advocating the benefits of hedonism, materialism, selfishness, drugs, and general debauchery. The birth control pill (another gift from science) and the ensuing sexual revolution has helped this along.

Those who are Religious claim that the last 100 years shows what can happen to a world that derides religion, but still feels ignored by the skeptical Scientist.  He is also watchful that Barbarian attitudes don't infect him with subtle forms of hedonism, materialism, selfishness, intolerance, and fanaticism.

In short, there's a stalemate.  Each philosophy feels a mixture of confidence and doubt.  In the next chapter we will explore a new theory in Science that can possibly break this stalemate.