Even if I could, I would not strip people of their belief in a celestial candy-man . . . a man who could have made the world satisfying and delicious, but instead gave us mixed canapés that include cold crap on a cracker. Sure, the sunsets are nice, love is grand, and the food is good. But allergies, arthritis, the illness and death of family and friends, not the mention the dentist’s waiting room!? Yeah, I’ll take it any day over what’s lurking behind door number two. But I wouldn’t step back and say, “And it was good.” Nevertheless, people got to have that ole time superstition. Which certainly makes things interesting. A world in which everyone believed the same thing would be worse than the dentist’s waiting room.
As a last-gasp defense of religion, many people assert that although there may not be an almighty candy-man, at least religion provides moral teaches and comforting thoughts. In response I would first ask, “What moral teachings are those: Thou shalt not kill? That is not a moral teaching, but a moral instinct. Not killing thy neighbor is a human universal–it is found in all cultures, regardless of their form of belief or lack thereof. Furthermore, you don’t find chimpanzees, or even wolves for that matter, killing their own kind willy-nilly.”
What about the moral teaching, Thou must stone adulterers–still respected by some Muslims today?
Granted, the Bible contains a smattering of moral nuggets. But it also has many proclamations that are blatantly antiquated and backwards. With or without religion, children tend to get their morality from places outside church doors: from their genes (as an innate tendency to empathize, etc.), from their parents, from their peers, from their little league coach, and elsewhere.
One of the undeniable positives religion seems to provide is charity work. Yet people too quickly assume that without religion, the charity would disappear. I’m not convinced of this. I think people are charitably by nature–some of the great philanthropists of our day are non-believers, such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. If we were to subtract religious organizations from people’s lives, perhaps the void would be filled by other community organizations.
As for my own atheist self, I do volunteer work at a grief center for children who have recently lost a loved one.
To a significant degree, the good religion does can be chocked-up to community involvement. When people join churches they invariably associate with other human beings. The medical and psychological studies that have found health benefits for believers, when examined, can be seen as measures of how social involvement and its consequential emotional support is good for health. It doesn’t matter what church you belong to–it could be anything from Mormon to the church of the flying spaghetti monster–the effect is the same, providing the level of social involvement is the same. People like to belong to groups, and when they do belong, they are happier and healthier.
What about the comforting mythology? Too often we assume that these claims are true. To really know if the religious belief is comforting we’ve got to define and measure what we are talking about. The presumed effect often disappears–such as in the case of believers being better behaved than non-believers (Well, what do you know, atheists are not anarchists!).
A study conducted by a researcher in my home state, Florida, warrants mention. Monika Ardelt of the University of Florida presented her findings at the annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of America in 2001. She found that people who turn to religion during trying times do not have a greater sense of well-being nor a decreased fear of death than those who do not turn to religion. In fact, a sub-group of believers feared death more. Religion, by itself, is no panacea. It’s more complicated than that.
Ardelt did find that a sense of “purpose in life” provided positive benefits. However, that purpose did not have to be religious in nature. Very importantly, the life choices are not, either you have religion in your life and thus purpose, or you don’t. Many things can bring purpose: learning, loving, caring, building, sharing, etc.
Yes, religions can and do provide benefits to individual believers and the communities they serve. But it’s not the dogma, nor the god they worship, that does the work. It is the sense of purpose and belonging that groups can foster. And these can found or created outside church doors.
I’ve got a new website up with material from my book: MP3 files to listen to or download (embedded YouTube videos have half-baked, value-added “visualizations” as well).
Religions are very big book clubs. The books are big, as are the clubs. The primary difference between them and the small groups meeting at Barnes and Noble is that the religious groups stick to the same book week after week, month after month, year after year. It’s a shame they don’t broaden their horizons and move on. Another difference is that the church coffee isn’t as good.
What the big book clubs and the smaller book clubs have in common is that many who attend the meetings haven’t gotten around to actually reading the book. At least not all of it. They form their opinion from select passages or listen to what others have to say, and then agree or disagree with that.
The Bible is a very big book, and, like most works of fiction, its message can be interpreted a number of ways. Hence the need for many different groups of readers/believers.
Does god demand that we be circumcised or baptized? It depends on which group you belong to. Was it the Jews who killed Jesus, or Colonel Mustard in the library with a candlestick? Scratch that. Was it the Jews who killed Jesus (a.k.a., the son of god, god himself, and the secret 5th member of the Beatles) or is no one to blame but God’s own plan, thus the whole event was an act of spiritual suicide? Scratch that, too. As you can see, I belong to no group that has formed one interpretation of the Bible and placed it on a pedestal.
After having recently read the Bible page-by-page, cover-to-cover, twice (different versions), I have come to see it as an interesting anthropological document. Call it the fictionalized history of a changing group of people. For me, the Bible has no scientific and little to no moral value. Approached as a cultural artifact, on the other hand, the Bible has quite a bit of value. It can tell us a lot about ancient civilizations and their concerns, needs, customs, and beliefs.
Consider these lines:
We are the chosen – my friends
And we’ll keep on fighting – till the end -
We are the chosen – We are the chosen
No time for losers
‘Cause we are the chosen — of the world . . .
The above words are not from 2 Kings 1:10. That passage reads,
Elijah answered the captain, “If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men!” Then fire fell from heaven and consumed the captain and his men (New International Version).
The five “We are” lines indented above are actually from Queen circa 1977, from their “News of the World” album. Except I changed “champions” to “chosen.” Still works, I think.
I was never a Queen fan, but that is a pretty darn good song. I’m also not much of a Bible fan — in terms of finding value in it as a poetic-slash-inspirational book. As a whole, I believe that Biblical wisdom and morality is less than worthless. Beyond the pervasive, battle-happy xenophobia, the sexism, the anthropocentrism, the glut of mixed messages, the book just doesn’t move me. I’d rather spend my Sunday mornings reading items from Bartlett’s Quotations. Or going bird-watching.
Speaking of bird-watching, I certainly have activities in my life that, were I to go loose with language, could be called spiritual. Making excursions in nature and becoming surrounded by the amazing complexity, beauty, and even brutality of the wild pulls me out of myself. When bird-watching, I feel I glimpse a bigger picture.
Where my experience differs from those who spend Sunday mornings in church re-reading their favorite book, I think, is that I come away from my activity with the perception that humans play no central role in creation. We are part of it, sure, but not the most important part, as almost all religions assert.
By the way, the Bible god is not what you would consider a bird-watcher. Sure, he allegedly knows when every sparrow falls. In Genesis (King James Version) he refers to birds as “those things that flyeth.” The Bible god’s taxonomy is impressively simple, but incorrect. Elsewhere in the Bible he recommends the sacrifice of doves and partridges as recompense for sins. This is a case of two wrongs not adding up to anything. Nowhere in the Bible will you find information on the yellow-breasted warbler, the blue-gray gnatcatcher, or the red-headed woodpecker. Instead, it’s all about people, people, people.
Doesn’t good literature, in general, tend to expand our horizons, to show us something new? What does reading and re-reading the Bible accomplish?
I wonder.
Excuse me for arriving late to the “elevatorgate” brouhaha. (Am I lazy, or was I waiting for a cooler head to prevail? Maybe both.)
For those of you unfamiliar, the skeptical/atheist online community was sent into a tither over comments made by popular blogger and podcaster Rebecca Watson* in a YouTube video (she of Skepchick and the Skeptics Guide to the Universe). Rebecca had related an experience of being propositioned in an elevator at 4:00 in the morning. She said, “Guy’s, don’t do this.” Rebecca had very recently given a talk (sat on a panel?) about how to better invite women into the skeptical community.
Cue shitstorm.
I must admit, the whole thing kinda got my goat as well. For two reasons.
1) A lack of skepticism.
Both sides got heated about what happened and how bad or benign it was. Ah, excuse me, but don’t skeptics realize that personal anecdotes are a very unreliable source of data? We have no idea what really happened in the elevator (was it closer to near rape or a bad joke?). Was the experience a fluke, an outlier, or truly representative of what women experience? What does stronger data say about male and female relations today?
2) Feminism and skepticism don’t mix.
Before anyone gets their undies in a bunch — at times I consider myself a feminist. My political blood runs liberal. But I understand that any cart-like agenda, any “ism,” must be put after the horse of skepticism. If the horse is to work most effectively.
Agendas pose a threat to skepticism. With an agenda comes motives beyond just wanting to understand “how things really are.” With an agenda comes a potential conflict of interest, conscious or not.
In a similar fashion, this is also why I feel slightly threatened by the agenda of religious accomodationists: The idea that we must reach out to those who ascribe to more moderate and liberal belief-systems so that we can make better progress toward some social goal. Like fighting the push to include Creationism in public school science classes. While that is all well and good, I believe even that agenda does not fully mix with ‘pure’ atheism/skepticism.
In my way of thinking, there should be no alliance between full tilt skepticism and any agenda beyond asking questions and attempting to determine the validity of claims.
Do feminism and skepticism mix. No. Do skepticism an atheism mix? Same answer, really. Skepticism should come first. Whatever conclusion follows, follows. But if you start with an agenda — that’s trouble.
Switching metaphors here — What are skeptics who have agendas (as we all do) to do? For starters, strive to make it more clear to ourselves and others when we are wearing our “skeptic” hat and when our “agenda” hat.
[cartoon thanks to JesusandMo]
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