 Well, I guess maybe we should get started. I want to welcome you to this edition of the Brown Bag Lunch Discussion sponsored by SAC's Department of Language, Philosophy, and Culture. My name is Richard Scherning, I am Professor of Philosophy here at SAC, and I'll be your host for this discussion. The topic of our discussion is the phrase or the sentence, I'm not religious, but I am spiritual. It's something that I hear fairly frequently, and maybe you have as well, or maybe it described you. But in the course of my about 15 or 20 minute presentation, I'm going to try to explain what I think it means, and then evaluate whether it makes any sense. After my presentation, the floor will be open to your questions and comments, and I hope you'll take advantage of that so we can get a true discussion going and not just a lecture. Now I was drawn to this topic hard on the basis of a Pew survey that came out last year on America's Changing Religious Landscape. The survey had a number of questions that were given to respondents, 35,000 respondents in fact, and you can see what the question was here. What is your present religion, if any, and then you check the appropriate box that describes you. The one that's of interest to us is the last box here, nothing in particular. These people who would check this box were called unaffiliated by the Pew survey for the reason that they're not affiliated with any particular organized religion. Let's take a look at what I think are some notable results of that survey. In the right hand column, you have the percentages of people who check these boxes in the 2014 survey. In the left hand column is a survey that was done seven years earlier by Pew. A couple of things you notice, those who check the evangelical Protestant box, the Catholic box, and the mainline Protestant box all decrease in percentage, whereas those who check the unaffiliated box or none box increase by almost 7%, and I think that's somewhat remarkable, and it leads into our area of discussion this afternoon because most of the people who check no or no affiliation generally will describe themselves as not being religious but being spiritual, and by the way I'll abbreviate that hence forth as simply N-R-B-S, and those who take that view will be N-R-B-Sers. Alright, so what exactly is entailed in this view? Clearly it's got two parts. The N-R part, the non-religious part, is pretty straightforward. These are people who do not identify with any named organized religion or even non-denominationalism. So they're not Catholics, they're not Baptists, they're not Muslims, not Orthodox Jews, etc. However, they want to make it clear that they're not to be confused with atheists or agnostics. They are believers and they are spiritual. So in looking at the second part, but I am spiritual, that's a little bit more difficult to get a handle on. But what seems to be at the heart of that view is the notion that it doesn't matter what you believe, as long as you believe in something, and then you push that a little bit further and it doesn't mean you literally believe in something. I believe that Austin is the capital of Texas, that's not what they're talking about, of course. They mean you have to have a belief in a higher power. So moving on to then trying to expand on what that means is, once again, a bit tricky. There isn't a consistent clear delineation of what constitutes a higher power. But I have five characteristics here that are often associated with the notion of a higher power and it's probably worth our effort to just walk through them. First the higher power is a supernatural being. It's not found in time and space or made up of matter and energy and it's a supernatural being with truly awesome powers, maybe maximal power, maximal knowledge and maximal goodness. It is often said that the higher power is the creator of the world, that the higher power has an interest in and communicates with human beings. The higher power issues moral directives and judges humans on the basis of those moral directives. That's pretty much it. Now when you look at this it sounds not too different than someone who might be a Catholic or a Baptist or a Muslim or a Jew, but the difference is that in those more traditional organized religions, this is just a part of what constitutes their beliefs, their beliefs go way beyond this and so we can call this a theology light, I guess. This is it and maybe not even all of this and that I think is one of the characteristics in general of NRBS. It's not heavy duty theology by any means. Alright, now why is it that NRBS has become so attractive to so many people as we saw in the Pew survey results? I think there are two main reasons. One is relativism and the other is an appreciation or a realization of flaws in organized religions. So let's look at each of these and walk through that. It says NRBS comfortably accommodates relativism. I think this is important because most of the people who declare themselves to be not religious but spiritual are in fact younger people under 35, well that's young to me. And they're a generation that has grown up in a very relativistic atmosphere. So I teach ethics classes and when students come into that ethics class, they're almost always come in with the notion that morality is relative. You have your view on abortion, I have my view, nobody's right, nobody's wrong, it's just a matter of personal preference or taste. And that extends to other areas, to politics and heaven forbid, even to science. There are people who, for example, are aware that 97% of climate scientists have affirmed that the climate is changing and that human beings have a large role to play in that. But their view is, well that's their take. I have a different take, it just doesn't seem like it works for me and that's alright. There's no right or no wrong in it. That's very scary, but that's a topic for another day. At any rate, NRBS can accommodate this relativism, especially in the description of the higher power. Just a few minutes ago I gave five characteristics of the higher power, but as I said, if you have a notion of a higher power that's not quite the same as that, it has some extra things or has fewer things, that's fine. There's no right or wrong answer to it. A higher power is anything you think or want it to be, as it were. And that resonates well with younger people. A second aspect that I think contributes to the attractiveness of NRBS is that many who embrace that view are aware or they believe that there are flaws in organized traditional religion. And among those are a violent and intolerant past with regard to religions. You can think of the Crusades, Muslims and Christians slaughtering each other. The 30 years, or if you know something about your European history, maybe as many as four or five million people, Catholics and Protestants slaughtering each other was the greatest slaughter until World War I. Those kinds of things are associated by NRBSers with traditional organized religion. It divides people, it sets them against one another, we don't want any part of that. Secondly, organized religion has a lot of scriptures and doctrines that come out of those scriptures. But as my students will sometimes remind me, but who wrote the scriptures? It was men, right? The implication being that men are inclined to be flawed themselves and to make mistakes. And so religious doctrines that are based on their rights are suspect as well. Plus the fact that there's no agreement among them, even within, for example, within Christianity, there are different interpretations of the Bible. And it's all, once again, confusing and contradictory. And it doesn't contribute to spirituality. We don't need tainted religious leaders. Think of the recent scandal of pedophile priests or other fundamentalist preachers who have been caught literally and figuratively with their pants down. And this puts NRBSers off. Stale religious bureaucracies, all these organized religions come with organizations, bureaucracies in which the, from the perspective of the NRBSers, are filled with being counters who are jockeying for political position within those organizations and they contribute, once again, nothing towards spirituality. Religious observances are unavailable. We don't need to say the rosary. We don't need to go to Mass. We don't need to go to Bible class or temple. We have a direct, we have an ability to have a direct connection with the higher power. And this infuses us with proper spirituality. The rest is not necessary. And then finally, overly judgmental religious communities where you have people who are not towing the line in those communities or shun or are excommunicated. This is harmful and hurtful. And once again, something that NRBSers simply want to distance themselves from. So I think those two reasons, and relativism and an adversion to organized religion, I think, have moved people to move toward NRBS. And not, but again, they don't want to be disbelievers. They still want to hold on to the notion of spirituality and supernatural truth. All right, now, having some idea, at least I probably give you some idea what I think NRBS is all about, it doesn't make sense. Well, I think there are problems with it. I've got five of them here that I want to go over with you. The first one is that NRBSers give insufficient evidence that a higher power actually exists. One would think that that would be, well, NRBS 101. If you're saying that true spirituality resides in the notion of a higher power, then it would seem that if you think your view makes any sense, you should be prepared to tell me why I should accept that as well. In other words, give me some reason to think that there is a higher power. NRBSers basically don't do that nor do they think they have to. And that, I think, is a significant problem. The other four problems I express in the form of questions. Why did it take so long in history for the higher power to clearly reveal itself and its messages? After all, NRBS phenomenon is a relatively recent one. We're talking about a couple of two or three decades maybe. Organized religions have been around for thousands and thousands of years, which leads into the third problem or question here. Why has the higher power permitted spiritually defective organized religions to so successfully impose their brands for so long and so many people? If indeed the higher power does have those powers and it has a characteristic of goodness, you think it would want us to know how we're supposed to relate to it, him, them, whatever, and how we should behave and so on. You wouldn't expect the higher power to hide his light under a bushel. But nevertheless, it's only recently that this has come out. This is hard to explain. Number four, why are the higher powers moral directives so vague? I didn't say this, but they really are. If you talk to someone who considers herself or himself not religious but spiritual, and ask, okay, the higher power gives moral directives, what does the higher power say about capital punishment? What does the higher power say about euthanasia, about abortion, about stem cell research? You're going to get a wide variety of responses. And it seems pretty clear that they all can be true. The higher power's got to act together. It's not going to be giving different people different conflicting moral directives. So what are the correct moral directives? Why would the higher power not have the ability to be very clear about what he wants us to do? And then finally, the last problem here. How can the higher power be maximally powerful, knowledgeable, and good, and yet cause or permit so much human and animal suffering? This is the traditional problem of suffering that the devils, no pun intended, virtually all religions, whether NRBS or the traditional religions. If you have the notion of a being that is worship worthy, then that being has to have some awesome powers. We're not going to be worshiping somebody who has only limited powers, goodness, and knowledge. We left that behind with the Greek and Roman gods. If we're going to worship something, it has to catch our attention. It has to have the credentials. And so almost all of the religions that we find in the world today impute great powers, maximal power, maximal knowledge, maximal goodness. Well, if the being has all of those things, then why is the world so sucky? Why is it that 21,000 children under age five are dying in this world every day? In fact, in the time that I just said, it took me to tell you that four or five more kids under five just died. That needs to be explained, and NRBSers don't do that. And one would think that that would be an important point. All right, so I think there are problems with NRBS. What about conclusions that I wrap this up before we get to your comments and questions? In conclusion, I think we can sum up and say that I'm not religious but I am spiritual, is a vague, relativistic, and not well supported view of the supernatural, which distance its adherence from organized religion. All right, number two, NRBS is a threat to the religious establishment. And that's not nothing because in the United States, the religious establishment has had and continues to have significant influence on politics, culture, and other areas. And for that to be diminished is going to result in quite a change in how this country is going to proceed in the future, whether that's good or bad, you can decide for yourself. But clearly, it seems as if NRBS is siphoning away adherence from the traditional organized religions. Third, carrying on somewhat from the second one, NRBS will likely continue to change the landscape of American culture and politics. And notice I say will continue to because I think it already has. And if you think about these areas here, within the last two decades or so, you can see a significant change in attitudes towards sexual morality, LBGT issues, drug legalization. A couple of states have legalized marijuana. I bet others are going to be following soon. Euthanasia, just yesterday, California, will now allow under certain circumstances assisted suicide. We know gay marriage is now more normative than it's ever been and so on. I think it's fair to say that a good part of the reason for this is that the cohort that now fills up the NRBS lists is largely the one that's responsible for these changes. And so I think since that's going to continue, I would say, you're going to see even more changes in this direction in the future. And then finally, some might want to say that the move from traditional religion to NRBS is a stepping stone to making the final jump to non-belief altogether, either atheism or agnosticism. Again, you can decide whether that's good or bad, but that certainly will change the face of the United States, which by all accounts is the most religious of the industrialized countries. And in fact, one of the most religious countries or has up to now been one of the most religious countries. So if that indeed does happen, we'll start looking more like Denmark or France or something with respect to religion in the future. That will be a different United States than the one that we have grown up in. Okay, well, that is my setup lecture, as it were. By the way, if you need to leave, and I know some of you may have to do that, don't worry about it, just I know you're being polite and so on, you can go. But if you want to talk to me more about this in any way, this is my office on this floor and this is my email, feel free to contact me. So I hope we can get some questions and comments from you and get this into a real discussion here. Who would like to start? Yes? I'm just having trouble differentiating between the belief, the NRBS belief in the higher power, and a Christianity belief in God. Wouldn't God be considered a higher power? Yes, and I think everything that's in NRBS is also in Christianity. But then there's a whole lot more, like the Trinity, like the incarnation. And then of course, depending on what version of Christianity, maybe the papacy, and so forth. So the organized religions have a lot more than that. And that's what NRBS gets kind of turned off by. They think that the organized religions have gone on their own, they're flying off into areas that they shouldn't. All you need to know is that there's a spiritual higher power, you can relate to it. And you should do good things and not do bad things, and that's all. You can sleep in on Sundays too, by the way. I wonder though that some people who identify as spiritual but not religious, that their spirituality is watered down even a bit further than you presented, because you have a list of characteristics of the Judeo-Christian God and such, right? And I think a lot of people who call themselves spiritual would say, no, I don't believe any of that either. I just, I don't know. I think that astrology is pretty interesting, and the universe works in mysterious ways. And these kind of general vague ideas about I don't know what's going on. And then they call themselves spiritual, but they could agree with all of that. But still, maybe you're giving them too much religious belief. Well, yeah, and I hear what you're saying, David, and what I was saying too was that this is the most that they would probably want to believe. But like you suggested, many of them may not buy onto many of these as well. So it's very difficult to tie them down. I've had conversations with students, and sometimes trying to understand what they're saying is like trying to nail jelly to the wall or something. It's very slewier answer. Yeah, yeah, and so I take what you're saying, and I think you're right. Yeah, it's even. I guess the way I see that they're coming across at the end of the page, they're their own gods because really, there's nothing other. I mean, how can you prove? I mean, they're just like whatever, you know, I, myself, aside. Well, I'm sorry. They're the sort of ritual strength, kind of, they're all like, really? Yeah, I tend to agree with you. I think that's where the relativism comes in, or subjectivism, which is sort of another kind of relativism. Yeah, I think they are, what do we normally say that in the Judeo-Christian Islamic tradition, God creates man in his image. Here, I think you're suggesting it seems like NRBSers are creating God in their image, what they want it to be. And that may be a problem. Which is what their own rules are on. I mean, they really don't have any guidelines. I always like to use an example of the freeways. We have lines, and you stay within the line, and they're there for a reason. We make those lines because we know that if you don't stay in those lines, we don't have any lines here. Everybody's out on the freeway. It's kind of like the end of the year, whatever. I mean, it's not in spiritual, but how do you know? It's like, OK, so where's your guidelines? Where are you getting? So you are the beginning and the end? Or I mean, you're like, whatever goes out there. Go here, go there. There's no stoplights, there's no red lights, there's no yellow, there's nothing. And that creates chaos, and that's exactly what they're... Well, I don't think that's true at all. Yeah, and how you're forcing me into defending them almost, really. You're suggesting that if someone doesn't believe in God, they have no rules, and they don't respect them. No, no, what I'm saying is they're saying, OK, I'm spiritual, but there is no guidelines, because like you were just saying, where is your proof? I mean, why did God wait? So why did your God waits to long to be noticed or has revealed himself? Where is this? And I'm saying the example that I'm using when you've got the lines on the freeway, they were there to begin with. When the freeways were created, they were there to begin with. I understand that, but... So they're there for a reason. So where is your God, or you, or war? Doesn't exist. Why can't the God of a person that believes in NRBS coincide with a God that you believe in Christianity? I mean, just because we don't go to, or just because NRBS people don't go to church, and blah, blah, blah, does it mean that they don't believe in the same God you believe in? They just have a different way of approaching that God, which doesn't include the church. Yeah, except also, remember, the church says that if you want to properly relate to that supernatural being, then you do need to go to the church. This is something that our students don't quite get. They think it doesn't matter what church you go to. I ask a question, this is very interesting. I teach a religions class, and I ask a question on the discussion board from my online class. Is there a correct religion? And I'm expecting to get, well, yeah, and then the next question is, which is it and how do we know? We never get to which is it and how do we know? Because they all answer no, there's no correct religion. And they talk about religions as if they're talking about health clubs. You pick one that you like, the one that's convenient, the one you're comfortable with. Well, how about picking the right one? There is no right one and so on. So, I tell them, but the religions themselves don't agree with you. They are going to say there is a right one. Catholics are gonna say, look, with all due respect to Methodists and Baptists and Jews and Muslims and so on, we're the right way to relate to God. And Muslims are gonna say the same thing and so are that anyway. So the point is to take that kind of NRBS stance is not going to go over well with those religions in the sense that you're cutting corners. You should be with us as Southern Baptists or with us as Mormons or whatever. And I think that's why you can't just simply say, well, NRBS is enough. It may be for them, but the idea is the religions themselves are gonna say, no, you're not with us if you're just bad. Doesn't Hinduism accept the beliefs of coinciding gods? Hinduism is very tolerant, yes. And that's true generally of polytheism. They're not so jealous. I mean, let a thousand flowers bloom, you know, you want to. Yeah, so they wouldn't be upset with this at all. I think that believed in Jesus. He's like, yeah, I believe in Jesus and God too. But he just kind of made it seem like that was another one of his gods, the Christian God. Was it another avatar of vision? Jesus. I think I've heard that, the avatar of vision. I don't know if you believe that Jesus was an avatar of vision necessarily, just that he also accepted the Christian God. Yeah, I don't think he did, but I think some others, yeah. But you're quite right. Hinduism wouldn't have a problem with NRBS. Hinduism generally doesn't have a problem with anything. You want to be a Buddhist, that's fine. But although that's changing a little bit now, there's a party within India, a political party, that is sort of a religious political party, and they are starting to push back against, let's say, Islam and some of the other religions that they see crowding in on Hinduism. Hinduism is religion for people in India, and it's the right religion for people in India. You should follow it and much less tolerant than it was in the past, but otherwise you're right, yeah. What would you say, I mean, we have this conversation where you have Christians who say Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship, and therefore, I'm spiritual, I'm follower of Christ, I believe in the Bible, I believe in Jesus, and God, and that's it. And I'm not gonna argue, clearly I love arguing, but that's beside the point. You know, you have people who say it's just a relationship, and so therefore, they're spiritual, they don't wanna claim Christ, and they don't wanna claim Catholic. They just, well, that's it. Yeah, that's a good point, Lisa, and the traditional religions are not about to give up their claim to spirituality. They're going to say, you know, we're not unspiritual, we reject the objections that the NRBSs were raising here, we can explain the violence, we can explain this and that, and so forth, and so on. But it doesn't apparently fly with the NRBSs, they still say, well, you can say you're really spiritual, but how come the pedophile priests, what's going on there? Why is it that we've got the history of violence with all these religions? This does not have the fingerprints of true spirituality, over it has the fingerprints of grubby human beings who are trying to create some sort of supernatural superstructure in which they can operate into their own advantage, blah, blah, blah, so on. They're gonna be unreceptive, NRBS is gonna be unreceptive to that. They're gonna say, no, true spirituality, and you know, it's a little bit Protestant. They're sort of saying true spirituality doesn't need organizations, and that's not exactly what Martin Luther and his contemporaries said, but there is a sense in which they say, we just can go directly to God and we can hook up, but then they add on all the extra stuff with the Lord's prayer and the sacraments or the lack of sacraments and so on, and then as soon as the NRBSs hear that, they go, no, no, no, the ice glaze over, you had it, you almost had it. Yes, we can go directly to the supernatural source, but then you load it up with all this other crap. We see that, we get rid of that crap, we just go with the higher power, and that's all you really need. As far as the future is to the US and how it can affect, or how it is starting to influence huge political issues, how would they come together if they are so liberal in their views? Is it more of an idea of like racism and like liberalism? Or do they all agree that being progressive is the right way, because it seems that way, but whenever you talk to NRBSs or they're very tolerant of other people's views and think their own way. So how is it that they're able to organize a more progressive direction? Are they believe it or not? Well, there's no organization in that sense. What they agree upon is that there's no organization and that you can believe whatever you want. So they agree on relativism, although it's not a formal thing. They don't go around saying, oh, you're a fellow at NRBSs, let's hear it for relativism. They're just gonna, basically, the way they're coming at it is, look, we're tolerant, and it's hard to not like tolerance. It's not like this world suffers from too much damn tolerance, you know? And so in that sense, I can even be somewhat understanding about NRBS, but that tolerance essentially blanches out any sort of coherent understanding of what they're saying. It's just a gesture. We should be nice to one another. We should do good, we should not do bad, and there's some sort of supernatural being that's looking over all of this. That's all you need. And I'm thinking, it's interesting, because I'm an atheist, but I think Jeannie and I would probably agree that this NRBS doesn't really hold together well for different reasons, maybe, but we would agree. And that's the problem. It's a nice idea, but maybe what Jeannie might say, is it Jeannie, right? Jeannie, I'm sorry, Jeannie. What she might say is, well, why can't I still, I'm a Christian, or I'm a Catholic, and I'm tolerant of others, just because I think there's a right answer to whether God exists and how we're supposed to relate to Him. That doesn't mean that I'm intolerant towards others. And there's some sense to that too, although, once again, then the history, you look back at the history, and it does seem to divide. So NRBSs are, I think, pushing this tolerance. I got a slightly different angle, but building on something you were just getting at, I think, is maybe we can ask the question about some viewpoint or some ideology. Does it make sense? And you also may come down and say, well, no, it really doesn't. It sounds like you would say it, and one level, I know you would say it, so therefore you shouldn't actually hold this position because it doesn't make sense, right? But then there is the sort of the more practical, political, ethical question of, okay, would you rather have people hold a relatively peaceful, non-threatening, incoherent idea or a much more coherent, but dangerous, and violent, just entirely hypothetical, often, before it's right? False choice. Why not, why not a coherent, intolerant position that's tolerant? Because, alas, that is not the most likely of the options. The two options, they'll see on the buffet are either this wishy-washy, no-toes-relativism or fundamentalism. I'd go with the one you said first. Yeah, those are the only two choices, sure. So again, I've quoted really just that clarification. To say something doesn't make sense is you're not saying that, therefore, that's somehow, it's the worst option out there, is that it's certainly not the best. Well, yeah, and from my perspective, being a non-believer and also being a political liberal, it's hard for me to get too upset with NRBSs because the actual results of their NRBSing it seems to lead, I think, to good results, and so I do understand that, but I would urge them, maybe, think about taking that final step, but far made for me to. I mean, just kind of going off, as Dustin said, I kind of look at it from a historical, almost idealian perspective, that this is a necessary movement into a bigger, they're not quite ready to go to atheism or agnosticism, it's emotional perhaps, intelligence, if you want to call it that, but in time they're going to question these beliefs further and the next step will happen. So this is just, when we push it in the context of time, we cannot expect suddenly to go from strong religious beliefs to the complete absence. That would be, it's just not unreasonable given what we know about humans. So this is just maybe one of those intermediary steps. A future time will be a future of zeitgeist or whatever you want to say it. I think you're right, Ken, and there is a vague similarity to deism. Yes. The deists were intellectuals in the late, last half of the 1700s, who I think in some sense felt that there was not really enough evidence to really affirm Christianity, let alone Islam or some of the other religions, but somehow or other it's just too radical and also maybe too dangerous to assert complete disbelief. And so they took that intermediate step and then as Ken was saying, maybe that's something that might lead to the final step, but we don't know for sure. It certainly hasn't manifested itself quite yet in the United States. The nuns or the unaffiliated, that's growing pretty rapidly. The percentage of atheists and agnostics is rising but it's rising much slower than the NRVS. The points that you gave about the spiritual not religious, it was really, really explanatory. I think the biggest thing is that they're not able to prove in a higher power because there's no empirical data. So because of this, based on what we've been learning, it kind of makes it inconsistent philosophy or belief because it's based on faith, which the NRVS says is something that's verifiable. Yeah, usually what you get is something like, well, what, prove the existence of a higher power? They'll look at you kind of funny, first of all, but then they'll say, well, I just feel it. I can't give you the proof in any way. Proof is the antithetical to spirituality. We don't prove things when it comes to spirit. We just feel them. And that, I think, is a problem because it's a recipe for chaos, isn't it? I mean, anybody can quote feel anything. Yeah, like it's too subjective. I mean, unless, like, I mean, if you're like, like, I mean the spirituality, I mean, it is your world view. It is your philosophical views unless someone's supposed to assert that those are separate, but I mean, can you prove that they're separate? And that's important, isn't it? Because I give the credit to NRVS's. They are trying to find the proper way to conduct themselves in this world. And they think that the higher power business is the way to go, but it may make them feel good. Getting back to what Dustin was saying, it makes them feel good. And they actually end up doing the right sorts of things, at least that most of us would think are right. But it's not really based on something that's accurate. Is it really what they want? I mean, what they're really striving to get, aren't they striving for truth? Are we all ultimately, oh, maybe I'm being too philosophical here. But it seems to me I want to find out how things really are. Yeah, but you're a philosopher. Yeah, that's true. I like that there's a lot of people that might be drawn to this. Are not drawn to it because they're searching for truth. They're answers. It's because they have parents and grandparents that are religious, and they disagree with that, but they don't want to be the atheist that defies their family and their traditions and Christmas and all that kind of stuff, right? So they say, yeah, I still believe, but not really. What feels good, I mean, there's hope after life. People get it in the end. It certainly doesn't require a whole lot of you. I mean, I will say this, if you're an Orthodox Jew or if you're a true Roman Catholic, there's stuff you gotta do. And some of it isn't always pleasant in the sense you have to get up and go to the church and say the rosary and go eat certain foods or not eat other. So they're committed, they're walking the walk. NRBSs are talking the talk and there is no walk to walk. Basically, you know, just don't murder anybody and be happy, that's not exactly wrong. I agree, don't murder anybody, be happy. I'm on board with that. But if that's your, the essence of your commitment, that's not a whole lot out there. Well, do they need to breathe in the higher power in order to be as incentive to act or be good because they didn't believe in a higher power than they would feel like as much as an incentive because they will be judged later by some. I think you raised a good question. And as someone who's an atheist, I get that all the time that somehow or other religion is necessary to keep people on a straight and narrow. And without that, oh, what I would do, how many times again, I've heard students say that. If I didn't think, da, da, da, I would. Well, I think what you were suggesting is probably right. No, I think it's quite possible. We have evidence abundant that people without religious convictions are no worse than other people. And in fact, if you look at the countries in the world today that are most prosperous, peaceful, and have the lowest crime rates, they are largely secular-oriented societies. The ones that have the most trouble are the religious-oriented societies. I'm not saying that. Correlation is not causation. I'm just saying, look at that. So, yeah, sure, one can do all those good things without necessarily having the umbilical cord to the supernatural world. They're just hedging their bets like Pascal. Just in case. Don Vest, Don Vest. Yes. Is NRBS non-conducive to polytheism? Like, can an NRBS or be polytheistic? I would think so. You could just simply, instead of saying, hey, higher power, there are higher powers. I was wondering, there's a general understanding among traditional religious and the NRBSs that there is at least a somewhat standard mode where at least most of them, that you should not murder. That's what a lot of the objection to war and death is, that murder. And would that not be said to be an objective standard? Would that not be contradictory to their relativistic view? I would think so, although, again, they're not necessarily always gonna be consistent. They might say, well, when it comes to that, yes, that's objective. And even my students will often say that. But on the other hand, what about capital punishment? What about war? What about pacifism? How would they deal with that? Well, again, they're all over the place as to what constitutes so-called okay killing or not. So, yeah, but there are elements, even with my students who come in and with this relativistic attitude towards ethics, if you, again, tease them, tease out some of their beliefs a little bit, you do find that there are some things they're willing to almost go to the mat for. Like, raping babies is wrong. Yes, okay, I'll agree to that, but what about abortion? I don't, there's no right answer there. And then I try to tell them, look, it doesn't make any sense to say that there are some actions that are objectively right and wrong and others are not. It seems to be one or the other. Either all of them have the ability to be objectively evaluated or none of them do. What you're probably saying is that I am quite, you're probably an objectivist. You're probably saying I'm quite certain that genocide and raping children is objectively wrong. With abortion or euthanasia, I'm just not sure is what you're really saying. But you shouldn't jump from the fact that I'm not sure. I don't know what the answer is to therefore there is no answer. That's a leap that is not supported by any evidence. And sometimes they get that and sometimes they don't. Would you view that at a different leap than the leap of faith? Well, okay, when we talk about making leaps, it could be a rational leap. When you're doing a proof in logic, you're sort of going a leap from one step to the other and there's no faith involved. It's just a matter of deductive laws. But quite often, of course, the leap of faith is something that comes to people's mind when they hear leap. And that is something that's truly, purely non-rational. Kierkegaard certainly made that pretty clear, didn't he, that the leap of faith is not to be a product of some logical proof. You just go and jump. And you just hope that God's there and gonna provide a safe landing for you. And then right here about relative, someone say, everything is relativistic. I think to myself, or I sometimes have the opportunity to say it, that isn't that statement objective? No, isn't that statement itself? It's not objective. If it's relativistic, then why should we listen to you? Yeah, that's the referential problem of relativism. And couldn't it be a leap of faith if you have a student who comes to you and says, I'm not your professor, would you recommend for me to take in another one of the thinkers? And you just, by coincidence, he could have a great professor that they need. Would that be that good? Well, not really, because you would maybe have the background information that this student is, you know, if you know the student, that they've been fairly reliable in the past, that they're not kidding or trying to fool you. Or even if you don't know them, the fact is, most people, when asked a question like that, there's no reason for them to give you, to tell a lie. It's possible, but in general, you can probably tentatively go along with that and say that's a reasonable thing to say. Are there both, within this undefined pool of NRVSers, are there both objectivists and subjectivists in this mixture of people? There may be, but my sense is that they're mostly subjectivists and slash-relativists, at least when it certainly comes to religion and morality. Now, maybe when it comes to geography or something, everybody is an objectivist. Everyone agrees, Austin is indeed the capital of Texas, something like that. Even though they believe in a higher power, it's a subjective higher power. There's not any that are objective in there. And you can't say they're none who are, because again, this is an amorphous group of people with beliefs that are very hard to nail down, as I was saying to David, so I'm sure there might be a few that might be that way, but I don't think it's the prevailing ethos for them. I think that distinction might help hear that, but what you're referring to is spiritual relativism, which is different from moral relativism. And I get the sense that it's been equated a couple of times. Well, but I think they are related. They're related, but they're not the same. Okay, right. A person could be spiritually relative, so I really don't know. I kind of think there might be something out there, but when it comes to ethics, I am a strict consistent utilitarian, et cetera, right? So. All right, you've been a great audience, and thank you for showing up, and have a great day. Thank you.