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Me (in response to a number of things on a msg board):
"Acting like Jesus," despite what the mere construction of the word
might suggest, is NOT what "Christianity" is. There are perfectly
secular fruits of - and justifications for - "acting like Jesus" (like
the Jesus we see in the Sermon on the Mount anyway). It was Paul
however who put together this whole redemption story and transformed
Christianity from being the religion OF jesus to being the religion
ABOUT Jesus.
My idea in saying that hands-off respect for religious beliefs is
killing us (which I share with writers like Sam Harris and Richard
Dawkins) is that (and you can probably count this as a critique of one
of the features of liberalism) so many of us are so beholden to bizarre
ancient myths that it's impeding our progress on numerous issues of
socio-political importance. If you look into the heart of the
opposition to any of a number of issue positions liberals like myself
care about.. you're likely to find religious fundamentalism driving
that opposition. Abortion, contraception, gay rights, stem cell
research, science education, civil rights, foreign policy,
environmental policy, and more. Yet it's regarded as abhorrently
subversive and impolite to actually question the basis of those
beliefs. We've agreed to an absolute relativism when it comes to
religious beliefs.. anyone can believe anything they want.. and no
one's beliefs are any more well-reasoned.. well-thought out..
well-justified than anybody else's. And even if they are, you're not
allowed to say it! To even begin to suggest otherwise is to sin against
the identity politics of liberalism! As Sam Harris ably points out,
fundamentalists will talk about evidence.. it's liberals who insist
that we all play nice and not talk about religious issues. It is this
relativistic morass that I think bogs us down.. and prevents us from
asking the questions that need to be asked of religious believers. We
seem to consider it perfectly fine for people to hold whatever
religious beliefs they please.. but then act surprised when they
actually act on the basis of those beliefs, treating the effects but
not the cause. We insist that religious belief is "personal" and need
not impinge on other people. It doesn't surprise me in the least that
Christians try to outlaw abortion and gay marriage.. try to convert
other people.. conduct foreign policy believing that a god promised
certain pieces of land to certain peoples, etc. Beliefs have
consequences. They are expressed in the voting booth and they are
expressed by our leaders. Indeed, what IS a religious conviction if
it's not allowed to be acted upon? Christians believe that Jesus told
them to spread the good news. And they do. That's consistent. Believers
consider abortion, contraception, homosexual practice, embryonic stem
cell research, premarital sex, and more.. immoral. So not only do they
try to avoid those things themselves.. but they preach the sinfulness
of those things and try to oppose them on a legal and societal level as
well. That's consistent. For believers to try to express these beliefs
through legal and social institutions is "intolerant" and "illiberal?"
Is this realistic? That seems to me to be, at best, a diplomatic
holding pattern to keep us from each other's throats for the moment. We
call each other "intolerant" for expressing their religious beliefs
rather than evaluating the theology itself which gives rise to those
beliefs. It's a nice sentiment to say.. hey, not everyone shares your
beliefs.. and because we live in a pluralistic society.. we're going to
need to compromise and not impose certain restrictions/laws/whatever on
people who do not share our convictions. But people really believe
these things! How I wish it were that most people had the sense of
genuine fallibility that the liberal assumes. If I believe that you're
an apostate.. that you're leading others into sin.. leading society in
the wrong direction.. and that you're hellbound.. wh.. I, if I'm a
devout Christian, am just supposed to be okay with that and say.. well
different strokes for different folks? I think that's naive and
neglects the fundamentally social nature of religious institutions. Not
that we want to be abrasively disrespectful of people's deeply held
beliefs either. I understand that beliefs pf this nature are often
deeply and passionately held. Let me modify what I just said. Beliefs
are not entitled to respect. PEOPLE are entitled to some measure of
respect. It's a variation on the hate the sin, love the sinner idea.
Beliefs can be as stupid and groundless as can be. And I won't deny
that there are less intelligent people and there are more intelligent
people.. but it is the person who is to be accorded respect when
arguing about these things. Many studies do show, incidentally, that
atheists and agnostics on the whole have higher average IQs than
religious believers.. but that works against the point I'm trying to
make and we'll leave that aside.
My point was that political correctness - the automatic respect we seem
to accord religious dogma - is preventing us from criticizing and
questioning people who desperately need criticism, questioning, and a
healthy dose of intellectual modesty. And in this way.. religious dogma
has a deathgrip on our society. The United States is so backwards
compared to the rest of the developed world because of the precedence
of evangelicism in this country. Europe is in many respects what our
future looks like and I welcome it.
Many of you are objecting that atheists need a dose of "criticism" and
intellectual humility if we are claiming that there CANNOT BE a god. I
am not claiming that. You don't DISPROVE an assertion. The burden of
proof is on religious believers putting forward the proposition that
there is a god and that "he" cares about our sex lives to provide
evidence that this is indeed the case. In the absence of such evidence,
the rest of us are justified in a WEAK ATHEISM. It's the subtle
distinction between not believing in god and believing that there's not
a god. Absent evidence, I can say.. what god.. I don't see any god.. I
don't know what you're talking about.. and until you show me evidence
of this god (that is not better accounted for by more simplistic
principles of logic and science), then I just don't believe. Indeed, I
do think that there are good reasons for believing that there is NOT a
god as well, but that's a different story. The most fundamental
question is one of evidence. What I see religious proselytizers doing
is appealing to people's emotions.. their sense of human anxiety..
incompletion.. wonder.. insecurity.. loneliness, etc. and coaxing them,
in this way, into buying into (this is a sort of salesmanship, after
all) what are really ill-justified half-baked ideas about gods and
ghosts and resurrections and prayers and sacrifices. People believe not
on the basis of well-reasoned evidence but because they WANT to
believe. They convince themselves that the events in their lives are
answers to their prayers when in fact SOMETHING had to happen.. and the
prayer hypothesis was never falsifiable in the first place. The denial
of death is very consoling. Loved ones are still with us and we will
never REALLY have to face mortality.
I've written enough. That's all I have to say for the moment.
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| | Posted 10/21/2007 11:59 PM - 62 Views - 4 eProps - 2 comments
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