Untangling religion from issues with christianity

[sqbr]

EDIT: HMMMMM. So it would appear my framing of this question is flawed thanks to my simplistic understanding of religion and other such ineffable philosophical things my non-arts-major brain gets very confused by. I may take a while responding to comments while I have a serious think about what I really mean.

So most arguments I've seen for being religious use some very flawed arguments. Unfortunately, so do most arguments against being religious, and this bugs me (I'm always more annoyed at the flaws of "my side"). One of the main flaws in both(*) is an assumption that either you're christian or you're an atheist: thus if you can poke holes in atheism people must automatically convert to christianity, and if you can poke holes in Christianity you've proven atheism is the best choice.

And a lot of the time the "Christianity" people are criticising is a straw man anyway, based either on fairly extreme denominations or just particular annoying individuals.

So I thought I'd go through all the things atheists tend to say "all religions" do and see how many are actually true of all religions.

Where I can think of specific counterexamples which prove my point I've included them. To avoid the sense that I'm cheating, I've tried to avoid religions like Deism and Wicca since they were to some extent deliberately designed to avoid the "annoying" bits of christianity , and I'm sticking to large organised religions which are fairly active nowadays.

Also: these "flaws" are not all actually flaws per se, they're just things atheists tend to complain about :)

Many members of any large group of people, including atheists

• Have prats, weirdoes, kooks and extremists
  
• Are smug against those outside the group
  
• Are hypocritical
  
• Use straw man arguments
  
• Teach their children to agree with them
  
• Make overgeneralisations (Yes, this is a generalisation :D)
  

All religions

• supernatural beliefs
  
• a certain amount of reliance on faith (I've become convinced that "faith", like "superstition", too easily turns into a weasel word meaning "Strong belief held by people I think are irrational". It can have positive meanings, but they don't apply to all religions)
  

Most denominations of christianity (with counterexamples from other religions)
And to make it extra clear: these are COUNTERexamples.

• immaterial (probably immortal) soul ()
  
• belief in a god or gods (Jainism, Taoism)
  
• personal God communicated with through worship and prayer (Deism)
  
• interventionist God (Deism)
  
• Afterlife (Taoism)
  
• One size fits all spirituality (Wicca, Mahayana Buddhism)
  
• evangelize (Judaism, Hinduism)
  
• disbelief is immoral (Baha'i)
  
• Faith trumps reason when deciding on spiritual matters ( (religious) Theravada buddhism)
  
• fairly rigid ideas about what sex is and is not allowed (Wicca)
  
• Holy book advocates violence, sexism, racism, etc (Sikhism, plus all the ones with no holy book)
  

Some christians

• nonbelievers automatically go to hell
  
• anti-science
  
• anti-sex/fun
  
• literalistic adherence to dogma
  
• The world is fair and just
  

A LOT of this is probably wrong. I'm as blinded by my limited religious upbringing as anyone else, I'm more trying to get people to think about it than educate anyone, but will fix any errors people point out.

So, what have I missed or gotten wrong? I can see this being something that bugs atheists, christians, and non-christian-religious-types so I expect you all to contribute :D Please note: I'm not interested in issues people have with particular religions that aren't ever claimed to hold for all religions, which is why there's no "Most denominations of Islam" etc section. And I know some non-christian religions do some of the stuff in the christian sections, but not all of them. I single out christianity not because it's particularly bad, but because it so dominates our culture that people have trouble seeing past it.

Also: No taking potshots at other people's belief systems! There is a difference between saying "A common criticism of religion is that it's evangelical" and "I HATE EVANGELISM FOR THESE REASONS...". Do not do the second, take it to your own lj :P (And this includes ranting about how much atheists suck)

(*)Which I have encountered in western, christian-dominated society. I'm sure these arguments take on a very different flavour in, say, India. This post totally doesn't address that.

Comments

[alias_sqbr]

Absolutely, especially if you're not a member of the majority religion. I know my grandma still feels some melancholy as a result of leaving judaism 50+ years ago.

[http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/]

especially if you're not a member of the majority religion

::squints at that sideways::
::squints at it the other way::

Hmm. With the greatest respect to your grandmother, I'm not sure about that. OK, I get that if you grew up part of a minority religion, and therefore a minority culture, you are probably more sensitive about your relationship with your culture and what losing any part of it may mean. But on the other hand, if what you have lost is your connection with the mainstream culture then you have moved from a dominant position to a minority one and the shock and hence hurt is greater accordingly. So I reckon it is swings and roundabouts.

On the other hand I am a fourth generation agnostic, so I have never experienced the shift personally, having always been part of the excluded minority, and I may not know what I'm talking about :D

[alias_sqbr]

Oh, yes, becoming an atheist in a christian county (say) is a bit stressful regardless of where you start, and I guess it might be harder to come to terms with leaving the dominant religion than a less dominant one since it's harder to imagine living any other way. (I don't know, I've never left a non-dominant religion :))

But while I miss a lot of parts of christianity, I still get to engage with easter, and hot cross buns, sing christmas carols, etc, because they're the default setting of australian society. Christianity is everywhere, I don't have to consciously seek it out (which would make me wonder WHY I was seeking it out) nor does anyone look at me funny for engaging even though I'm not christian.

But it's a lot more difficult for my grandma to eat Challah bread and celebrate Rosh Hashanah while remaining an atheist, she would have to go very much out of her way and have awkward experiences with religious jews and/or non-jews. In fact it's not only easier for her to celebrate christmas, it would be hard for her not to. Admittedly, the fact that her daughter, my mum, is christian, doesn't help. But for example her old people's home is FULL of christian imagery and traditions and has NO jewish ones.