The Uses of Common Sense

By Joshua F. Leach

A great deal of ink has been spilled in the course of Western philosophy over the question of whether or not the material world exists. Some great minds have been led to insanity by the possibility that it does not; others have accepted their nihilism cheerfully. But just about all philosophers, whether they came from the tradition of empiricism and skepticism, like Hume, or from that of idealism, like Hegel, were eventually forced into a sort of extreme subjectivism, concluding that we do not, in fact, exist, and that the world is merely the product of our imagination. Various philosophers accepted this solipsism to a greater or lesser degree, but it formed the essential tenor of philosophy in the modern world.

This is rather alarming for those of us who stroll around in the non-philosophical world, putting one foot in front of the other on the hasty presumption that the ground exists and will be there to meet it. Most of us are probably frightened by the threat of nothingness which lies at the heart of this sort of thinking, which is why I’ve heard so many people describe philosophy as “depressing.” But unfortunately, there’s no way around these conclusions. It is entirely possible that the material world does not exist, that it is the product of our imagination.

The breakthrough of the analytical philosophers, particularly Bertrand Russell, however, was to point out that, simply because something is possible, that does not make it true. This is where common sense comes in and allows us to distinguish between one possible proposition and another. For instance, it may be true that every person I’ve ever known is the product of my imagination. However, it may also be true that what our common sense tells us is correct, and that people have an independent existence. What is more, the second option has probability on its side. This is illustrated by the following example. Suppose I see a stranger out of the corner of my eye on a city street. I will probably not think anything of her, especially if I do not see her again for another twenty years. But at the end of those twenty years, when I do encounter her, she will appear twenty years older. Now, it is possible that I have an incredibly brilliant and far-reaching imagination which is capable of keeping tabs on every stranger I encounter and making sure that they all age whenever I’m not imagining I’m watching them, but this would be quite a feat. The more likely conclusion is that these strangers have an independent existence and material properties which cause them to age whether I am there or not.

This is the value of common sense: it steps in where reason fails us. Of course, common sense may be wrong. It told Aristotle, for instance, that dung produces vermin, which no one believes today. Science often has to fight an uphill battle against common sense. But this underrated quality does get us through the day, and we all rely on it more than we are willing to admit. We do not steer clear of cliff edges, for example, because we know that the curvature of space-time causes massive bodies to exert force on one another, but rather, because of our common sense. Without it, we would surely all be dead by now.

Common sense is not a replacement for reason, experience, scientific method, etc. But where these prove ineffective, we may be forced to use it, as in the above philosophical example. This brings me to my main purpose in this essay: religion and its relation to common sense. Religious people often deride atheists for their excessive reliance on reason. They regard us as arrogant eighteenth-century Whigs convinced that all the mysteries of the universe will eventually bow before our almighty reason. Little does it matter that it is far more arrogant to declare absolute knowledge about God and eternal life, as religious people do, than to say, along with the atheists and agnostics, that it is useless to make definite propositions about things which can neither be proved nor refuted.

Atheists, at least in my experience, do admit that reason cannot conclusively solve all the questions of life. It can help make sense out of experience, intuit conclusions from masses of evidence, and connect one idea to another; it can also help us determine what is possible and what is impossible. But when it comes to determining between several possible conclusions, that is where common sense must aid us. We often rely on it to tell us that one thing is more probable than another.

One of the favorite tactics of religious people and of the more militant “I don’t know” agnostics is to accuse atheists of having a pointless “faith” in the nonexistence of God. Everyone has her own absurd beliefs on the question, they say. Since none can be proved, why should atheists hold to their own view so firmly?

Of course, your typical atheist does not say that there cannot possibly be a God; she says that she refuses to believe in one until she sees some evidence. All admit that there may be a God. There may also be a mystical creature called the Slynx which hangs by its tail from tall branches and drops onto unwary passersby. To say that one does not believe in either is not the same as declaring that both are outside the realm of possibility. This is where common sense makes its appearance. It is possible that the aforementioned Slynx exists in some deep woodland in Siberia or the American West. But because there have been no confirmed sightings of the Slynx in fraud-proof conditions, because no Slynx has been captured and put in a zoo, and because no unfortunate hikers are found in Yellowstone or Yosemite with unmistakable signs of Slynx manhandling, common sense tells us that it is more probable that there is no such thing. This assertion of probability is the only one that atheists are making.

If we examine other religious questions we come to similar conclusions. Take, for instance, the question of the divine inspiration of scripture. Most religious people believe that their own preferred holy book was at least partially inspired by God, and some of the more tolerant believe that the same may be said of all scriptures (although most set L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics apart).

Again, reason will only take us so far in all of this. It can help us determine what is possible, but beyond that, we are stymied. It is possible that there exists a God. This God may live in the sky or in a burning bush or with the Slynx in Siberia or outside of the material world entirely, as religious people now argue. It is also possible that this God inspired the Holy Scriptures. Reason does not tell us that this is necessarily either true or false, but common sense may point us in the right direction.

First of all, the notion of the divine inspiration of scripture leads most people to conclusions which they cannot possibly accept, both ethically and empirically. One need only read the transcript of the Scopes Monkey trial to encounter a few obvious flaws in the Old Testament’s view of the world. As Clarence Darrow pointed out, while the Bible may not allow for the theory of evolution, it tells us a great many things as well which science has long since discarded. For instance, Joshua is described as demanding that the Sun stand still, which indicates that the Sun rotates around the Earth. Of course, many religious people do not today believe that this is the case.

Most scriptures also teach ethical lessons which no one today can accept. If one seeks violent pornography, one need not read the Marquis de Sade, but simply open the Bible. This includes a scene (chapter 19 of Judges) in which a “selfless” man takes in a stranger who is being pursued by a gang of rapists (this is not to be confused with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, which begins with a similar premise). The selfless man in question offers the rapists his daughter and his concubine instead of the stranger, who, as a man, has a right not to be raped which the Old Testament does not grant to women. “Ravish them and do whatever you want to them,” the man declares. The rapists proceed to do just that, after the concubine is sent out to them. The next morning, apparently without reason, the selfless man “took a knife, and grasping his concubine, cut her into twelve pieces, limb by limb, and sent her throughout all the territory of Israel.”

This sort of grotesque, directionless loathing of women can be found in nearly all scripture, and this is not to mention the other violations of human rights and dignity that they encourage. Islam, for instance, was developed by patriarchal chieftains who practiced polygamy and slavery. Mohammad himself married a girl as young as nine, which we would now describe as pedophilia, and engaged in slave raids on rival tribes. Meanwhile, Hindu scriptures such as the Manusmriti encourage one to pour molten lead in the ear of a member of the lower castes who forgets her place, and the Ramayana, an epic with holy status, describes Ram, the godly hero, driving his wife Sita to suicide by self-immolation.

Few people today would accept these things unquestioningly. Of course, there are still Islamists who throw acid in the face of girls attempted to go to school, and there are still members of the upper castes in India who commit atrocities against Dalits, but among the intellectual defenders of religion, this sort is a rare breed (although we shouldn’t overlook the more or less openly misogynistic Islamist “scholars” who are considered by many to be part of the mainstream). Rather, these defenders make the claim that the parts of these scriptures we find objectionable were not the work of God but were added later by malicious human hands. For instance, most modern Hindus no longer accept the Manusmriti as legitimate scripture. Also, most now regard Ram’s treatment of Sita as a sort of lesson in how not to treat women, and regard Sita’s suicide as an act of defiance. This seems an alarming claim to make when women in Afghanistan, for instance, are currently immolating themselves in large number due to the hopelessness of their condition. Should we regard these suicides as acceptable, or only those which supposedly took place long ago?

But if there are apparently human hands at work in these scriptures, and they are not merely God’s words, then how are we to determine what is sacred and what is profane? Our own reason and conscience? But then, as our collective ideas change, we are bound to discover still more human meddling in the body of these scriptures. For instance, one hopes that we will someday regard cruelty to animals the way we now regard slavery, or that we will view the belief in hell and eternal punishment as extraordinarily vicious. Then we will undoubtedly uncover more human work, while God’s share in the writing of the scriptures will seem smaller and smaller, so much so that one wonders why He deserves the credit of sole authorship.

So, we are faced with two possibilities, and reason assures us that both are theoretically possible. Either God, writing thousands of years ago at different points of the globe, somehow miraculously forecasted our future humanitarian ideals and attempted to write them down, but various wicked human scribes got in the way and put in a lot of rot about slavery and misogyny which God did not intend. This is, I repeat, a possibility. The other possibility is that scriptures were human books written by various ruling elites in backward societies, many of whom owned slaves and regarded women as chattel.

And this is where common sense comes in, and points out that one of the two possibilities has a great deal of probability on its side.

There remains one final religious argument to consider: that of Karen Armstrong in her recent book, The Case for God. Armstrong argues that atheist thought is incapable of demolishing faith in God, because religious people and theist writers have a conception of God which Richard Dawkins, say, has failed to understand. This conception of God is not of some bearded fellow in the sky, but of an enormous, universal question mark. This God cannot be understood, described, or expressed in human language. It cannot even be said to “exist” per se. Rather, it represents the mystery of the cosmos, the great enigmas of existence, before which we are powerless.

One does a double take when faced with an argument of this sort. If God does not exist, then Richard Dawkins is perfectly correct. If Karen Armstrong does not believe in a God which has an actual existence, which can wield an impact on the physical world, which can affect our daily lives, and which can be thought of in something resembling language—in short, if all she believes is that the universe is full of mystery—then clearly she is an atheist herself. No serious atheist has ever denied that the universe is full of mystery, wonder, and majesty. While scientists and rationalists may have the hubris to attempt to solve one or two of these mysteries instead of accepting powerlessness and defeat, this does not mean that they are the philistines Armstrong thinks they are. Richard Dawkins, for example, has frequently written of the beauty of literature, art, and the natural world.

The true absurdity of Armstrong’s argument is that she believes that all religious traditions have been built around this conception of God as a non-existent non-God. Scriptures and dogmas have simply attempted to guide believers toward this mature understanding, she argues. We will leave aside the obvious fact that if God is conceived as non-existent and lacking supernatural power, then it is no longer a God and the believer becomes an atheist. Armstrong’s assertions about religious traditions do not seem credible. Granted that many modern theologians have been forced to adopt an increasingly distant and non-Godly conception of God, but this has nothing to do with the traditions they represent and everything to do with the progress of science, which has steadily eroded any rational basis for religious belief and pushed theologians into further and further backwaters of linguistic nonsense (Armstrong’s apparent assertion that God exists without existing is only the most recent example).

All scriptures describe a God or several lesser gods who speak, act, and wield an impact on the material world. All have a will, all interfere with our lives, and all may change things as they see fit. It is possible that Karen Armstrong is correct, and all of this is intended allegorically. But why, we may ask, would religious people write allegories in order to express the opposite of what they say? If they were trying to convince people that God does not exist in an explicit sense, why would they write allegories in which He does? Finally, why would prayer, sacrifice, and the belief that God can fulfill one’s wishes be such a deeply ingrained aspect of all religious traditions if those traditions did not believe that God could wield an impact on the real world?

Common sense is indeed on our side. We atheists, therefore, do not need to regard reason as the only human capacity of worth. Religious people have long since abandoned reason, after all, as Freud pointed out in The Future of an Illusion. But even common sense and ethical feeling are against them. We may therefore conclude that no human thought process of merit, other than wishful thinking, leads to religious conclusions. The forces which compel so many otherwise intelligent people to accept their value must be sought elsewhere. The task is a big one, intended for more expert hands than mine.

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