The Argument from Citation

Peter Coghlan, a senior lecturer in the school of philosophy at the Australian Catholic University has felt the need to argue that 'Religion should not be glibly dismissed as mumbo-jumbo'. I hope he surprises me and uses some arguments that I haven't seen before, but I'm afraid that I'll be disappointed.

He starts with a fair and accurate representation of Catherine Deveny's argument, which I will boil down to one sentence - "Religion is nonsense and you shouldn't constrain your life and thoughts with it." In response to this Coghlan argues:

"Deveny's stance represents one possible response to human experience. It is the kind of response that Wordsworth expressed in A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal when he spoke of the absolute finality of the death of loved one."

At this point my simple-relativism-ometer is flashing and my inner Ratzinger is drafting excommunication speeches. One possible response? A 'glib dismissal' is a possible response? Coghlan doesn't recover himself either. He doesn't retrieve himself from the edge of simple relativism, which even I with my postmodern Arts student education dislike.

Instead, he presents the Argument from Citation, which doesn't so much prove that there is a god or that religion should be taken seriously, but that people in the past have written stuff that took it seriously and that the author has read their work. Coghlan describes Wordsworth's position and then says,

"But Wordsworth's vision needs to be placed alongside other deeply felt responses that find meaning and value in human experience that may extend beyond the grave."

Simple relativism anyone? Coghlan employs T.S. Eliot's 'Four Quartets' and while wikipedia notes that he converted to Anglicanism, this doesn't prove anything. So it's a good thing then that Coghlan asks the question: "Which vision is right - Wordsworth's or Eliot's? "Reason", "evidence" and "common sense" may not be able to answer that question conclusively." But here again, he resorts to simple relativism, arguing that some people might go for Wordsworth, others for Eliot and others for a combination.

"But ultimately, our adoption of one position rather than another is deeply personal.
[...]
They do not provide us with conclusive proof of any reality that transcends the natural world of space and time. This is what I miss most from Deveny's article: a humble awareness of the limits of "reason" in this context."

Sure, reason has limits, but why should faith, religion or spirituality be the necessary choice for transcending these limits? Why can't the simple "I don't know" be good enough? Why can't the conjecture, hints and guesses regarding the unknowable (or noumenal, in a Kantian sense) be treated as conjecture, hints and guesses?

Ultimately, I don't know what Coghlan was trying to argue apart from, "You can't prove there is no god." It's like saying that I can't prove there are no positively charged electrons. Electrons are more or less by definition negatively charged, but this position is based on inductive reasoning employed by physicists (every electron they have thus far encountered is negatively charged). There is nothing stopping them from finding the counterexample of a positively charged electron, except for its nonexistence, which cannot be proven. Great. See Celestial Teapot, see Invisible Pink Unicorn, see Flying Spaghetti Monster.

If, for all his philosophy and fancy poetical references, Coghlan's argument boils down to this then perhaps religion really is just mumbo-jumbo.