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

[zharradan.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty certain there are religions which don't believe in an immaterial soul; Frederick Buechner was a prominent non-dualist Christian theologian, for example.

In fact, I'm going to go further and be didactic: "not based on science" is also an incorrect qualifier, since religions have formed from scientific discovery, so the only actual qualifying trait of religion is that it involves unprovable/supernatural beliefs. Or, to put it another way:

Religion implies Faith; Faith is belief in the absence of proof.

Similarly, the only common trait of all atheists is that they believe themselves to not take important ideas on Faith (frequently they are wrong).

Christianity, other common religions, and the specific issues that surround them are cultural, not ethical or psychological.

Codicil A

[zharradan.livejournal.com]

Here are counterexamples for the dogmas you didn't list-

Afterlife (Taoism, arguably Zen)
Disbelief is immoral (Baha'i)
Fairly rigid ideas about what sex is and is not allowed (a thousand cults, frequently formed for specifically sexual purposes!)
Holy book advocates violence, sexism, racism, etc (Sikhism; the Guru Granth Sahib is a book of love poems)

Codicil B

[zharradan.livejournal.com]

Also, I definitely agree with you about the christian-atheist 'dichotomy' being wrong, though I'd go further - there's no religious-atheist dichotomy either, that people can be moved between via argument, because the first involves belief of some undefined sort and the second is just a default position.

(Atheists who specifically assert that all religious beliefs are false are, of course, doing so in the absence of evidence themselves, and it might be fair to describe this as a religious belief!)

[fallimar.livejournal.com]

Hm, yes. All I can gather from most discussions is that it's all incredibly ambiguous, and I also agree with zharradan's comment that even the 'not science based' thing doesn't always apply.

I see it quite simply - to me, atheism is simply based on evidence. If something is observable to me, or explainable to me in a way that fits with the way I observe the world around me, I'm likely to believe it. The idea of anythig supernatural, spiritual or godlike doesn't fit into that for me, as I see no compelling evidence at all for their existence that can't be explained through more rational and believable means.
If such evidence were to arrive, I'd be more than happy to incorporate it into my worldview!

Faith's only different in that the rational isn't prized, rather abstractions of reality promoting the ideal rather than... how things are. Maybe. It's one way of looking at it, I suppose :)

Re: Codicil B

[fallimar.livejournal.com]

agreed on the last point here - though I myself don't believe it, I can't say with any kind of credibility that such view is definitely False.
I can say that I believe that it's much more -probable- that it is false, and that I myself believe it is false as I have -more- evidence to the contrary than to the affirmative... though any assertations of absolute factual truth from either side is laughable, as spiritualism and religion are undisprovable by their very definition.

[zharradan.livejournal.com]

One problem with all of the above is that many religious people sincerely believe that they have solid evidence for their beliefs - evidence which is as valid as that for accepted scientific theories.

[bunny-m.livejournal.com]

True, but said evidence is not actually evidence in the scientific sense. It's more that said people tend to not understand science on a scarily fundamental level.

I have no problem with people having faith without scientific evidence to back it up.* As you said up-thread, Faith is belief in the absence of proof.

What I have issues with is people claiming to have such evidence without actually knowing what the hell they are talking about. ("But $book says it's true!" or "But 1 x 10^x other people believe it too, so it must be true!")

It implies not only a worrying lack of understanding of science, but also a rather weak faith.

(*) I am, myself, quite religious, in a very non-standard way. I choose to believe X despite their being no evidence. That's why it's called faith.

[firvulag.livejournal.com]

as far as 'best choice' goes, agnostism is the best choice. "you" can not prove there is a God(s), just as you can not prove there is not a God(s), so the best choice is to not know.

nice write up on the flaws though, and yes I muchly dislike the flaws of my side too (which is not the best choice...)

[firvulag.livejournal.com]

yeah, despite no material or visual evidence to others, I have my beliefs for a few reasons, not least of which is having died 3 times on the operating table, in three separate trips. It's called faith for a reason, that's for sure.

[alias_sqbr]

Yes, "not based on science" was the wrong wording. "Believed in due to faith, not just science" is probably closer. But "Faith" covers that better :) *edits*

I was a bit unsure of the soul thing but wasn't aware of any counter examples.

Re: Codicil A

[alias_sqbr]

a thousand cults, frequently formed for specifically sexual purposes!

Heh, true. Though it would be nice to have a more mainstream example too :)

Re: Codicil B

[firvulag.livejournal.com]

atheism is most certainly a 'belief'. It requires you to believe there is no God(s), without proof of this. This means you have to take it on faith.

[alias_sqbr]

Heh, best as in "Hardest to argue against", sure. Of course most people don't have "hard to argue against" as their first priority when deciding how they feel about religion. Another "safe" POV is that we're all simulations in the Matrix etc :D

Re: Codicil B

[melberon.livejournal.com]

Your second point misrepresents the common atheist position - namely that there is probably no God, in much the same way that I believe there is probably no China teapot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot) sitting in orbit between Earth and Mars. It's not an absolute faith, because atheists (claim to be) willing to revise their position on either issue should there be material evidence to the contrary of their beliefs.

Some variants of agnosticism (including my personal beliefs), on the other hand, do require faith: faith that issue of whether or not there is a God or other supernatural / spiritual realm beyond the physical universe is necessarily unknowable.

Re: Codicil A

[seaya.livejournal.com]

A book of love poems? What? No it isn't. I think you missed a few metaphors.

Also, you list zen here, but really there is an afterlife in all Buddhism, but it's not essential to be Buddhist as such. Also, individual Buddhists might believe in some supernatural elements, but there is no god in Buddhism. Some people actually argue that it's not a religion.

Re: your earlier post, "faith" is a Christian term.

Re: Codicil A

[alias_sqbr]

Yes, buddhism is difficult, since there's lots of different forms which vary in how religious they are etc. Perhaps I should try to find less ambiguous examples.

Hmm. If "faith" is christian, is there another term for belief without proof? Or would you say that's not a universal feature of religion anyway? *reads wikipedia page on religion and confuses self*

*is reminded to add "belief in a god or gods"*

Hopefully I have expressed these thoughts in a way that makes some sense

[nicholii.livejournal.com]

supernatural beliefs

Hmm. This is actually a very modern thing, or at least that is what we are taught in Early Modern History (which is, admittedly, a subject dominated by post-modern academics). I'm not sure what the established position is, or whether there even is one, but these are my thoughts as inspired by what I have encountered in my studies:

It might be the case with believers in our culture today, but I would assume that that is influenced by a reaction to modern thought. A Christian today might say that they believe in "something more than just this material world", but that is not at the heart of Christianity. Rather it is a role into which religion has been placed, especially in the realm of the 'born-again' worshippers who have come to religion after growing disillusioned or disheartened by the emptiness that they perceive in modern existence.

My understanding is that the change to modernity, and the rise of modern science, was centred upon a reshaping of the 'natural' to be something that is purely empirical and physical. To a late medieval Christian, God was part of the world, part of nature. Evil, in certain understandings, was the subversion and rejection of the natural laws, and the 'supernatural' of 'superstitious' beliefs were those involving witches, demons, old wive's tales, and pagan monsters.

And whilst we are on this line of thought, let us talk of 'faith': what does it mean? As some other posters have commented in this thread, many believers would argue that they have access to evidence of comparable, or indeed greater, validity. Who is to say that the Bible is not a valid source of information about creation?

What you are effectively saying is that 'faith' and the 'supernatural' are, respectively, a form of knowing, and a level of existence/experience, that do not conform to the commonly accepted modern metaphysical understanding of the 'true' and the 'real'.


Personally I don't believe 'atheism' (in the strict definition of believing there is/are no God/s) and religion are mutual exclusive. But that all depends on what you mean by 'religion'. Whether 'a religion' is a particular metaphysical system of beliefs, or merely a group of people who believe in something existing within, and in some way irrespective of, the particular metaphysics of a society. Belief in a certain interpretation of the Christian God can exist within the framework of science, but the question remains as to whether this would indeed be a religious belief.


DISCLAIMER: It should be pointed out that I actually believe that Science is a religion, and I follow the tenets of it as I go about my day to day life. However, as I am actually pretty apathetic about how exactly this world exists, it doesn't bother me whether science is right or wrong. I am more concerned with meaning and mental qualia, two things that I believe empirical investigation will never explain.

Re: Codicil B

[greteldragon.livejournal.com]

You have a different Atheist belief to most people I know who describe themselves as Atheist. Or at least strongly atheist.

The claim to be willing to revise, doesn't mean much when someone strongly believes (or knows) they will never have to revise... in my opinion anyway

Re: Codicil B

[dr-jekyl.livejournal.com]

It takes faith to disbelieve only when there is a substantial volume of evidence to the contrary. Disbelief in the absence of proof of a positive assertation is *not* faith, merely the logical response. Again we come back to Russell's Teapot. If I say that it's out there, but don't provide proof to the positive that you can verify, is your lack of belief in it faith?

Re: Codicil B

[firvulag.livejournal.com]

Indeed, but the opposite is also true.

If you believe that there isn't anything out there but provide no proof to verify that, is your belief in it faith?

It takes faith to believe in an absence of something just as much as an existence of something, given no substantial proof either way.

Re: Codicil B

[penchaft.livejournal.com]

What if the out there is proof of the lack of anything out there? e.g. while one could say there is a family of grey kangaroos happily living and occasionally playing Gaelic football at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, there - to most people - quite obviously isn't. Is faith necessary then?

[havocthecat]

Oh! Counter examples. Never mind. *sheepish*

Re: Codicil B

[alias_sqbr]

If you believe that there isn't anything out there but provide no proof to verify that, is your belief in it faith?

Well obviously this depends on how you define "faith", and the beliefs if the individual atheist. I would say that some of them do have faith in the non-existence of gods.

But I would say most atheists (myself included) are agnostic atheists and think it's an insult to religious people to imply that all there is to their belief is "being quite certain".

I think that a strong belief shows itself to be faith when you take an action based on this belief even when logic says it's a bad idea, or you keep the belief even when evidence (as you perceive it) points against it. (It was still faith before then, but your actions would be indistinguishable from someone with the same beliefs but no faith)

For example, I tend to believe that alternative medicine is bunk. But I do not have faith that it is bunk, so when someone I trust said a particular acupuncturist helped their cfs, I gave it a go. If it had worked I would have been a bit irritated to be proven wrong but I wouldn't have had a "crisis of faith".

Similarly, if I encountered sufficiently unambiguous proof that a god or gods exist I'd be very surprised and have to re-evaluate how I see the world etc (since I see it being about as likely as the existence of dragons) If it turned out those signs had always been there and I'd missed them I would have a lot of angst about my "faith" in my own perceptions I guess, but I'm not sure that's equivalent. There are things I sort-of have faith in, but the non-existence of gods isn't one of them.

Also, there are theists who don't have faith, ie agnostic theists, Deists etc.

Anyway, this is all a bit off topic! That and I've had this argument like a million times, as have most atheists I imagine :P

Re: Codicil B

[alias_sqbr]

I think the most "common" atheist belief is that ones own POV is the norm when in fact we all vary pretty wildly on these sorts of issues :) (And as always, the people who speak the most loudly often have the most extreme beliefs)

The claim to be willing to revise, doesn't mean much when someone strongly believes (or knows) they will never have to revise... in my opinion anyway

That's not the atheists fault, and come the Rapture or whatever we can see who really meant it :)

Re: Codicil B

[firvulag.livejournal.com]

You've worded what I was thinking perfectly for me, thanks :)

I think if Incontrovertible proof of a God(s) or no God came to light, there would be masses of conversions to whichever 'belief' system was correct, as it's no longer a belief system. There will always be those that hang on for years and even generations longer. Flat earth believers for example.

And yes, a bit off topic and something most of us have run through in one form or another.