Religion

Monday, February 21, 2005

Religion is something that has affected me a great deal in my life. I was raised in a very religious family – more accurately, I was raised by very religious parents. They follow a conservative, traditionalist version of Protestantism generally called “Calvinism”, and believe that all Biblical accounts are literally true – for example, they believe that the universe was formed in seven days, that Adam was created first and Eve was created from his rib bone, that “the flood” actually occurred and submerged the entire earth in water, etc.

From a religious perspective, my parents, although they carefully instructed me in religious matters, taught me the “truth” as they saw it, took me to church and even sent me to a private Christian school, made one major mistake: from the beginning, they encouraged me to read, to seek out knowledge and information, and to think for myself.

I don’t think they ever intended that I would read what I ended up reading (science, mostly) or that I would analyze the religion they taught the same way I analyzed everything else. This might seem surprising (why wouldn’t they expect that?) but it’s really not. They believe what they believe so strongly, in the same way the American Declaration of Independence is phrased – “We hold these truths to be self-evident” – that I think they were caught unawares when as a young adolescent I vigorously questioned everything that until then I had accepted. After all, they believed so strongly that they would not even acknowledge logical fallacies like circular reasoning in my arguments with them, a reasoning they fell back on again and again, saying that “the Bible is true because it says it is true”.

Religions are specifically designed to grip people’s minds this way. In an essay called “Viruses of the Mind”, the author, scientist and famed atheist Richard Dawkins points out that religions share characteristics that help perpetuate the religion and minimize criticism: “[a] deep, inner conviction that something is true, or right, or virtuous: a conviction that doesn’t seem to owe anything to evidence or reason…[what we call] faith”, “a positive virtue of faith’s being strong and unshakable, in spite of not being based upon evidence” and “the conviction that ‘mystery’, per se, is a good thing”.

Looking at Christianity in particular (simply because I am most familiar with it, I am sure all religions have their own examples), this is quite evident. Faith is defined in the Bible as the “assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen”. Doubt and skepticism, which I view as valuable traits, are not acceptable, as the story of Doubting Thomas makes clear. It is important to religion that its adherents believe unquestioningly, for the most basic reason of all: self-perpetuation. In this respect, religions are similar to self-perpetuating corporations and other “entities”, a concept I unfruitfully tried to flesh out in a previous blog post.

Because religions are based on belief, they perpetuate and grow by causing others to believe. This is accomplished in various ways. Evangelism is one important method, especially for religions that are trying to grow in regions previously closed to them, the way that Islam and Christianity are growing in China, for example. The other major way they grow is the way that failed on me, which is that parents teach their children to believe. This works more often than not, I think. What’s interesting about this is that it illustrates why people hold the beliefs they do. My parents have stated that they believe what they do because it is (I will paraphrase) the “best” religion, the “only truthful” religion, God’s “true word”, the “only religion based on God’s works and not man’s works”, etc. In fact, the truth is they believe what they believe because that is what their parents believed and taught them, just like that is true for most religious people in the world.

If a single religion were the truth, then the followers of that religion ought to feel comfortable with presenting their children with various belief options: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, etc. and then letting their child choose which seems best. Religions don’t spread like that, however. Children (and adults for that matter) will only believe something if we tell them it’s true, or if they see it for themselves (impossible in this case).

A religious person might counter what I’ve written by asking if I’m an atheist (which I am) and then saying that a belief that there is no God is no less a faith, devoid of evidence, than their religious belief. They would be correct if that’s what being an atheist meant. In fact, although denying the existence of God makes one an atheist, lacking belief in God (or a god, or gods) also makes one an atheist. If the hypothetical child in the previous paragraph were to decline to make a choice at all, they would be an atheist. I fit into this latter category.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that atheists are doing a very good job at encouraging people to critically examine their beliefs. I say “unfortunately” because I think the problems that are either rooted in or related to religion – with its emphasis on unquestioning belief – are worldwide and undeniable. And though I think that the positive role that religion plays in many people’s lives is also undeniable, I think that positive contribution is seriously compromised by the fact it comes from “a conviction of things not seen”, i.e. it lacks evidence or to be even harsher, is based on untruths. I think an alternative life system (I say “life system” because it would not need to be based on belief), based on evidence and not on faith, that underlines the truly amazing fact of our existence and the awe-inspiring truth of our universe, could be an equally positive force in people’s lives, with the major benefit of being based on the truth.

Comment from Alevo:

You tread on dangerous metaphysical ground here. I am actually surprised how loosely you throw around the concept of truth – you put alot of “faith” in “evidence.” Care to comment.

Ade:

Dangerous ground, sure, but I don’t believe I’m loosely throwing around the truth. To me, there can only be one truth, and that which is opposed to that truth must be false. Because religions have opposing and contradictory viewpoints (e.g. Jesus Christ vs. Mohammed, to be flippant), yet each claims to be exclusively true, either only one is true and all the others are false (undemonstrated, at the least), or they are all false. I think trendy concepts like “different truths for different people”, i.e. believe what you want, lack intellectual rigor. The belief in some tribes that the moon is a god is not equally as true as the “belief” that the moon is a satellite orbiting the earth – one is true and one is not, one is based on evidence and the other is based on belief. The one that is based on evidence enabled humanity to put a person there.

I have no faith in that which has no evidence. I accept that metaphysical meanderings like the possibility we are figments of some creature’s imagination may also be true, but since we have no way of determining that, and since there are better and simpler explanations – e.g. what we see and experience is real – I’m not sure they’re worth living by.

Iliafer:

I too require evidence. To my knowledge, there has not been any solid proof, to date, which demonstrates that the Bible and its stories are in fact true. Now, some “biblical artifacts” have been unearthed, and provide some shaky evidence to support the validity of the Bible, but to there has never been any evidence unearthed which would unequivocally prove that the Bible is not some fake story.

I agree with Adrian, in that most religions seem to have arisen out of necessity, in times when we knew very little about the world we lived in. Religion provides a set of life-rules that help to create a more peaceful living situation. Religion is also a means of control.

Bottom line: I can only have “faith” in what I can see, hear, smell, taste or feel. These are the senses which I use to understand the world around me, to make sense of it. If physical proof of a God can be demonstrated, then I would be open to its faith. Simple belief in something that cannot be proved to me…I just can’t see myself devoting so much of my time and energy to an idea, much less go to war with someone else over it.

Ade:

Iliafer, re. “I can only have “faith” in what I can see, hear, smell, taste or feel”, I know what you mean, but you’ve opened yourself up to criticism in terms of other phenomena you probably believe in but can’t detect with your own senses, but that nonetheless have a large body of evidence to support them (magnetism, for example, although the effects of that are obvious. There are other phenomena that make this “point” better but I can’t think of them off-hand). I do know what you mean and agree with you, however.

Iliafer:

Well, I knew someone would say that. In response, the instruments that we use to detect these things are like extensions of our own senses. Many are built upon the physical/biochemical basis of our own senses. For that reason, and because there is a body of evidence supporting their authenticity, I do trust that what they are detecting is an extension (albeit huge) of my own senses.

Alevo:

Ade – you answered me by saying that you weren’t throwing around “the” truth. I questioned your use of the concept. Perhaps this is where we would differ on the subject – I would say truth is relative, subjective even. (read: your different truths for different folks) Evidently, your thinking is more influenced by absolutist religiosity than you admit; since you are perfectly comfrotable suggesting absolute truth exists – further that you can prove it. I can almost smell the Christian hegemony. I mean, if it reasons like a pope . . . it must be a . . .

Ade:

Excellent response, and it made me laugh – I almost spilled my holy water.

I don’t think I am as absolutist or rigid about the “truth” as you might think, or perhaps as what I wrote suggests. I agree that to a certain extent “truth” is indeed relative or subjective, but I would place that more in the realm of the individual, in terms of how we view the world, how we experience things, and so on. I do believe, however, that there is “truth” that is universal, that must be if we are to even be able to communicate with each other. For example, I accept and will defend the “truth” that you exist, for which I have a great deal of evidence, including my wounded pride.

It could be said, then, that since God is an individual experience, that the truth of God may lie in the individual and is therefore relative or subjective to that person. Except that religions do not claim God as a purely individual experience, but rather as a universal, absolute truth that must be accepted in the same way that I accept your existence, or the fact that I see snow on the ground outside my window. Religions are quite clear on that matter, and are also quite clear in saying that other religions are incorrect, even to the point of following them being a guarantee of eternal damnation. Viewed as a whole, then, “religion” is not even logically consistent. I realize that some religions have been modernizing and are more flexible on these matters, with even the Pope making helpful comments about other religions being different paths to the same goal, etc., but I think that’s just the Catholic church grasping at relevance as it is pummeled by science, the growth of Islam and lawsuits for sex abuse.

On the other hand, there are those who are not religious but are “spiritual”, but those beliefs are such a mixed bag I don’t think they can be examined this way, and the concept is flexible enough that I could put myself in this category even as an atheist.

Pontiff out.