When my husband and I first married, we had spirited arguments about religion. (Bad pun intended.) Neither of us was religious, but my husband held particularly negative views of organized religion; I countered by equating religion with philosophy, and arguing that humans needed to have considered beliefs about the meanings of their lives, which either philosophy or religious doctrine could supply.
Over the years, I’ve come to agree with my husband.
Dismissing all religion is, of course, is manifestly unfair. I have several friends among the clergy, and friends and family who are religious in the sense that I once saw religious belief: as a guide to help wrestle with the moral issues that confront all thinking humans. They see the bible not as some inerrant word of God, but as a repository of tales intended to illuminate those moral quandaries and suggest moral/ethical solutions.
My friends are clearly not representative of what we might call public religiosity.
I recently came across a report that illustrates–unfortunately–the sort of religion that increasingly motivates political theocrats like Indiana’s Beckwith and Banks.
A prominent and prolific theologian in the Church of the Nazarene will face a church trial later this month for advocating for LGBTQ affirmation at a time when the denomination is doubling down on its opposition to same-sex relations.
The Rev. Thomas Jay Oord, an ordained elder and a lifelong member of the denomination, is accused of teaching doctrines contrary to the Church of the Nazarene. He is also being charged with conduct unbecoming of a minister for his efforts to move the denomination to affirm LGBTQ people. The church holds that “the practice of same-sex sexual intimacy is contrary to God’s will.”
I find it fascinating that people who assert belief in the existence of an omnipotent and all-knowing deity have the hubris to believe that they are perfectly able to ascertain the will of that unknowable deity, and are confident that their God–who presumably created the people they hate– shares their prejudices.
This news item is only one of hundreds of similar examples, which brings me to the ongoing arguments about the utility of religion in society. Persuasion recently recapped those arguments, beginning with the position of those who assert that secularism is the source of our social ills.
A growing cadre of intellectuals think the decline of religious belief has created a moral and spiritual vacuum, which has been filled with surrogate religions like wokeness and political extremism. They believe there’s a crisis of meaning in Western societies as people scramble to fill the “God-shaped holes” in their lives with other objects of worship. They argue that a renewed commitment to the Judeo-Christian tradition is the only way to restore a sense of social solidarity and shared purpose—and perhaps even save the West.
As the essay notes, these “new Theists” present a remarkably one-sided view of the history of religion, and especially Christianity. In contrast, it points to a straight line from Enlightenment humanism to the liberal rights and freedoms that the New Theists erroneously attribute to the influence of Christianity.
Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire challenged the authority of scripture, religious dogmatism, and the power of the Catholic Church. Baruch Spinoza rejected the idea of God as a transcendent supreme being, resisted supernatural beliefs, and made the case for religious pluralism and tolerance. In his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Spinoza said the state should hold sway over religion and argued for a rational interpretation of scripture. David Hume relentlessly challenged the moral and metaphysical claims of religion. While there were gradations of belief and unbelief among Enlightenment thinkers, a core aspect of Enlightenment thought was criticism of religion. And no wonder: the Enlightenment was in large part a response to centuries of religious oppression, dogma, and violence in Europe.
The essay is well worth reading in its entirety, but its basic thrust is that a Judeo-Christian “revival” would be highly unlikely to bring cohesion– “even Christians can’t agree on what it means to live in ‘one nation under God.'”
True, freedom and pluralism can be destabilizing. But as the essay notes, the proposed religious “solutions” are worse than the problem. Reversion to a phoney and contrived “Judeo-Christian tradition” wouldn’t be a step toward “some lost renaissance of cultural cohesion. It would be a return to familiar forms of tribalism, prejudice, and dogma.”
The pastors and politicians seeking to impose religious conformity are pursuing a fool’s errand–using religion (their own, of course) as a tool to achieve social consensus. (As the opening example illustrates, even theologians within the same denomination differ about “God’s will.”)
At best, they are misreading history; at worst, they’re really advocating Christian Nationalism.
Personally, I find it fascinating that some religious people think atheists must not have any morals. I’ve seen examples in various interviews where the interviewees express that they just don’t understand why atheists aren’t just wandering around raping, killing, and stealing. (The implication they make-probably unwittingly–is that this is how they’d behave without a god watching over them and requiring them to not do those things.
I behave well towards my fellow humans (and all other animals on this small planet) for a variety of reasons. I _like_ treating others well and doing nice things for them. It makes me feel good. I don’t believe there will be an afterlife. I imagine the time after my death will be like the time before my birth: I felt no pain, thought no thoughts; I just didn’t exist But, as such, I view my time on this planet as special; it’s my one and only real chance to experience the people and marvels of this universe and it must be taken advantage of. Why would I squander that opportunity by being terrible??
On the other hand, if a person is only being decent to others because they are _required_ to, I have very little respect for that person. The idea that this life is just an essentially-inconsequential experience that’s part of a longer ephemeral existence leads to the very squandering of this existence that I abhor. This is one of the key reasons that I wish people were not religious. I’m afraid it is causing at least some of them to somewhat _waste_ their one chance in this universe. And I find that very troubling, saddening.
Despite being raised in the “Church of England” I cast aside the concept of religious belief after years of reading and learning. I prefer the term ethics rather than morals because of the suggested superiority of judgment, and it’s supposed righteousness. To be honest, I believe people without a religious tether can be more tolerant, forgiving and accepting.
Nicely said Anita
Check out Bill Maher’s Religulous. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0815241/
Religion, as always, is changing, because it’s a part of history. And history is part of any society, and that changes, too. I think the most interesting thing going on this summer has been the first Hindu Prime Minister of the UK having a voice in who the King chooses as the Archbishop of Canterbury, even though he didn’t have the opportunity to exercise that right during his short term in office.
And, then, this morning we wake up and read that the wife of the Republican Vice-Presidential nominee is also a practicing Hindu.
Barack Obama sort of set the stage for this and was castigated because of who his father was. We’re seeing now, that it all just depends on who is doing the castigating.
Global reciprocity is an understanding all world’s great religions have a baked in scripture known in the Christian world as The Golden Rule. Believe and let believe.
Faith comforts some people. That’s good.
Unfortunately for them, it has become a very profitable form of entertainment, as those it comforts become easy targets for those who use words to capture their minds.
Of course, that statement is not all-encompassing. There are still many religions and many instances among them that have escaped capitalism and maintained their traditional moral certainty.
I am a life long main stream Protestant Christian, and I am appalled at what these so called Christians are doing in and to our country. Their beliefs are so far removed from what I have been taught, and what I believe. My church has a gay pastor ( our second). Two years ago we celebrated his marriage to a Jewish man in our sanctuary, complete with a chuppa and a rabbi co-officient. I chair our social ministry meal and socialization program for seniors and homeless. Every Saturday we prepare a hot meal for sixty people, and have been doing so since 1978. We have another group who prepare brown bag meals and distribute them to those living on the streets in our neighborhood. We are also in the planning stages of creating a weekly drop-in center for immigrant youth. They will have a meal, computer access, and sign-up sheets for use of our shower and laundry facilities. These are all actions that the right wing pseudo-Christians would find abhorrent.
I write this not to disagree with Sheila, but to say that all Christians should not be lumped together. My church is not alone in NYC, or even the country, that has tremendous outreach programs that benefit our communities. What we all have in common is our belief in Jesus’s teachings to help the sick and poor, welcome the stranger, and love our neighbors as ourselves, words pseudo-Christians ignore.
I’m probably an anomaly, but while I’m a practicing Episcopalian, I also believe that no one can discern the nature of God. I’m pretty sure it’s not the white bearded old guy pouring sunrays down on earth. It might be the Higgs Boson particle, but it might not be. Only a fool would proclaim any interpretation as right!
You might ask why I would join a church. Community is one reason. Together we can get a lot more done than I could alone. Having been raised a Roman Catholic. I wanted a church that was accepting of everyone. I found that at 16th and Central Streets in Indy. The Episcopal Church of All Saints ordained the first female priest in the Episcopal Church. It came at a high price in financial support, but it was the right thing to do. Some religions are doing good. Some are not! Just as some atheists are good and some are not. Follow your heart.
Religion is a system of beliefs. The etymology of belief and beloved evolved from the same root word: ‘lief’; in archaic German means happy or love. In a world of love, the only person one can control is YOU. That includes ME. Therefore: believe and let believe. One who says: “I do not believe” is one and the same with a conviction and therefore, believes. I cannot in good conscience join a community of faith led by a spiritual leader who differentiates from others to qualify what I believe and let believe … to love and let love.
The beliefs of these faux Christians are so contradictory as to be mind-boggling. Their omnipotent deity hates gay and trans people, so they say. Yet that same deity *created* gays and trans, so god despises his own creations? That doesn’t make sense. Or, if you really want to see their heads explode, say that clearly god made a big mistake. Big. Huge.
Neill DeGrasse Tyson summed it up perfectly, imo, when he said, regarding all the misery and suffering in the world, (and I paraphrase) that God is either all powerful or all good; he can’t be both.
What did the apostle Paul say in Romans the 13th chapter? It talks about the superior authorities! It talks about respect for the superior authorities!
Romans the 13th chapter:
Pay everybody what is due him: for whom it is the tax, the tax; for whom the tariff, the tariff; for whom fear, fear; for whom honor, honor. 8 Do not owe anybody anything, except to love each other; for he who loves the other has fulfilled the law. 9 For “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does not do anything bad to a neighbor; so love is fulfillment of the law.”
“You heard that it was said, ‘You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ However, I say to you: Continue to love your enemies and to pray for those persecuting you; that you may prove yourselves sons of your Father who is in the heavens, since he makes his sun rise upon wicked people and good and makes it rain upon righteous people and unrighteous. For if you love those loving you, what reward do you have? Are not also the tax collectors doing the same thing? And if you greet your brothers only, what extraordinary thing are you doing? Are not also the people of the nations doing the same thing? You must accordingly be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:43-48)
“There will be a period of time when they will not put up with the healthful teaching, but, in accord with their own desires, they will accumulate teachers for themselves to have their ears tickled; and they will turn their ears away from the truth.”(2nd Timothy 4:3, 4.)
Paul said in Romans the second chapter, pertaining to the non-Israelite nations, those that were never under the Law covenant: “For whenever people of the nations that do not have law do by nature the things of the law, these people, although not having law [that is, a law code from God], are a law to themselves.”
It’s human nature follow someone who is tickling your ears, it’s a permission slip! It allows you to do what you wish, because obviously everything else is wrong. So basically you do what you please. Even if your conscience is telling you something different. The conscience is not something that’s taught, it’s something that’s there in everyone. People will always criticize what they don’t understand, or, it will criticize out of the mob rule type of thought. In the end, those that formulate an opinion or opinions about something if they really are ignorant of, are winners of the fools errand and a fool’s errand is not something one would want to win!
Concerning Neil deGrassi Tyson, omnipotence means the ultimate authority. Nothing above it. So if there is an omnipotent presence, and that omnipotent presence says that something is correct, something is truthful, there is no other interpretation that matters. Men attempt to interpret scripture in ways that are not in the spirit of the writings. They try to bypass scriptural teachings by confusing those who are not able or not willing to read it for themselves. They are looking to get their ears tickled! This allows anyone to do anything they desire. But does God stop them? No, he lets people do as they please, but that’s a whole nother subject. You can see the chickens coming home to roost now, and it’s only going to get worse. Those that are intentionally misleading, as wolves and sheep’s clothing so to speak, They seek glory and fame for themselves, and the absolutely do not lack the mindless followers! As it says in Revelation, there is going to be judgment on the righteous and the unrighteous, so it depends on what your conscience is telling you, and what’s in a person’s heart. It doesn’t matter who or what they are! As long as they understand the truth of what’s actually happening in the world now.
Having been raised in a conservative Christian church but rejecting its rigid theology, I decided to draft my own guiding statement. This is what I came up with after weighing every word: “Open to transcendent goodness; reflecting it in my life.” There are no active verbs. Goodness encompasses such concepts as love, acceptance, grace, mercy, forgiveness, kindness, and generosity. I don’t think this creed could cause any religious wars, although in prior ages it could have gotten me burned as a heretic.
I suspect Jan would do her good deeds even if she weren’t part of a religious institution. As she knows, faith without works is dead. If God is pure love, and Jesus is pure love, then we are pure love in human form.
To me, the question is, “What does it mean to be human?”
I am both divinity and dirt. My conscience and God-consciousness guide my choices and actions. Thanks to my conscience, I get immediate feedback from my poor actions, even errant words toward others. I don’t need a list of commandments to know right from wrong. I’ve spent thirty years developing my spirituality, which has caused me to leave the world of material things. The goal of life is not material achievement. It’s to develop your spiritual self.
In my honest opinion, any religion that teaches you to “seek an external god” so that you can have ________ is looking to add congregates to his church. I don’t need to find anything external to me. I need to seek what’s hiding inside and develop that.
However, if preachers told their congregates to seek what is internal, they would no longer have co-dependent parishioners. Once people made the connection, they wouldn’t need to come back.
The Native Americans were much more spiritual than the Pilgrims, who forced Christianity down their throats so the government could control them. If you notice from natural history, conquerers always send in the missionaries first to spread the word of the gospel. It’s all about control.
When I attend mostly black churches today, I almost get sick to my stomach. Why were they taught to seek the God of Europeans? Didn’t most Africans have their spirituality before being brought to this country? A history of the Jewish faith and “Jesus” doesn’t come naturally to them, just like it didn’t come naturally to Native Americans. Well, I’m venturing off the subject…
It took fifty-five years for me to reach a breaking point with the hypocrisy of organized religion. I stopped attending church and have never regretted it.
Being forced by the IN state legislature to send my tax dollars to organized religious private schools is infuriating.
My thoughts regarding this statement from Sheila’s blog post – “the Enlightenment was in large part a response to centuries of religious oppression, dogma, and violence in Europe”. History is repeating itself. Organized religious leaders have been losing members and their financial donations for several decades. Decades ago they joined forces to devise an evil plan to take control of our legal system and all forms of government. They rallied their troops to find a back alley way to steal public tax dollars while also forcing their religious beliefs on the rest of us in the form of laws.
They may actually end what is left of our democracy. If that happens, China and Russia are both chomping at the bit to swoop in and devour the carcass that is left.
As soon as someone equates woeness with religion, as in “surrogate religions like wokeness,” I see that person as being beyond reason, as “woke’ is being rational and informed, sort of like Copernicus, ya know.
And, Anita did put it nicely.
If the only reason someone is being nice to me is because his/her god said to do so, she/he does not really care.
I do not know that we are here to develop our spiritual selves, but while we are here I think we ought to be considerate, and caring, toward our fellow travelers as we spin wildly through the virtual vacuum of space..
I find the bible to be a problematic source of information/contemplation for a lot of people including myself and so I’m not keen on extracting/quoting much from it. I just try to be a good person by doing good things and treating other people as I would want to be treated. And I try to forgive myself when I mess up. Because there are times that I do mess it up. Like right now I am really frustrated with the whole political landscape and I find that I have to turn it off because it makes me feel ill. I’m ready to vote blue and be done with it.
I attend a program that defines “God, as we understood him” to be a Higher Power. Each member of the group is free to find their understanding of that Higher Power. (And there is currently a move to change the gender-specific pronoun “Him” in our literature.)
I grew up Catholic with Catholic education for 12 years and after I graduated high school I was done with organized religion. I have an understanding that a group of people discussing a common problem can come to better solution than I can by pondering it alone. So I have my program of Steps and Traditions. I don’t want another human to tell me what “God says”! How arrogant is that!?!?!
Kathy,
And as open and unrestricted as your program is, there are Puritans involved who cannot handle anything other than their religious belief of who god is. When you are allowed to choose your conception, they look at each other and wink because they know there is only one true god, and that is the God in the Bible.
As your program seeks to change the pronouns from Him to IT (or whatever they choose), expect a HUGE fight from the right-wingers. They are the same crowd who believes the US was founded as a Christian Nation. They also think the woke crowd commits the evils of the world. The phrase, Live and Let Live is foreign to them.
Todd,
The United States actually was formed by individuals who were Christian, more Protestant than anything else. Interestingly, there were Muslims in this country way before there were Catholics. The African slaves brought the Muslim religion with them when they were captured and brought here along with other beliefs, like the African voodoo religion, also, known as Santeria which by the way, also incorporates Catholicism! It’s funny when you talk to folks about the founding of this country and they have no clue then Muslims were there before most other religions because of the slave trade. United States wasn’t even founded as a democracy hence the electoral college! There is no reason to not count every single one person or individual, one vote. Doesn’t matter how rich a person is, or who they are, just one vote per person.
The real fly in the ointment is, people really want to do what they want to do, no matter what it is! And they will seek any way form or fashion to accomplish those desires. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, they just want their ears tickled. They want to be able to do anything they please, without any rules, regulations, or laws. Instead of calling out the miscreants that purposefully misinterpret what scriptures say, to the point of a comedy Central show.
No one wants to go to hell, so out of fear we’ll follow direction on how not to end up there. Go to church, tithe and find out how to be saved. Only they have the answer. I’ve heard that mantra in religious and political spheres. Only thing is that it isn’t true.
Facts, truth and working within those boundaries is essential to progress and finding one’s way. Self-discipline is essential and people have been thinking and writing about those issues for a long time i.e. Plato and his “Republic”, and many other philosophers and theologians.
I think studying religion scientifically (comparatively) and why they exist and how they originated is enlightening/freeing and helps to broaden perspectives.
Storytelling was a pastime of ancient peoples to comfort, inspire and bind the culture together in other words unify. Today we have mass media, movies and cell phones to deliver messages to people. Only thing a lot of that info isn’t true.
I think the US is in the throes of growing pains out of oppressive mindsets and beliefs, and we need to protect the framework in US that allows that.
“…even theologians within the same denomination differ about “God’s Will.” And that, in a nutshell is why there will never be a universal religion. Trying to coerce people into accepting one is just about power. Doing so has always been about power in all its ugliness and violence.
In Sheila’s first quote from “Persuasion” it says “A growing cadre of intellectuals think the decline of religious belief has created a moral and spiritual vacuum, which has been filled with surrogate religions like wokeness and political extremism.”
People wonder why young people today are ignoring churches, have high anxiety, and are still living with their parents at 25 or even 30. You need to understand that their experience of life has been entirely different than ours. They know that Climate Change is real, and that we aren’t doing enough to stop it, and that their future may be an unlivable world. I had know idea about this when I was their age. They know that racism is alive and well, even if somewhat diminished and that it is very resilient. I thought we were finally going to finish off racism in the next couple of decades when I was their age. They know that poverty and homelessness are getting worse, and when I was their age I thought it was slowly getting better. And they know that my generation, many of us involved with churches, (I’m a boomer) should have fixed most or all of these problems or at least made the better. They know that the churches talk, and have talked for decades, about how terrible these problems are and how we need to fix them, but seldom have actually done anything. Churches proclaims the need to fix various moral and social issues and then spend their money on new parking lots and fancy buildings. The vast majority of the churches have done little to nothing of consequence over the last . . . . . well I don’t know how many decades or centuries I should look back . . . . to make the world a better place. Given this truth, why should the current generation as they become adults do any more than ignore the churches, and why shouldn’t they be anxious and depressed.
So many Christians – over the centuries – have not been particularly Christian. Loving others as ourselves is sometimes a tough commandment to keep, but it is our Christian obligation. Legally tolerating religious differences in a pluralistic, democratic society is our constitutional obligation.
Religion helps many become better people. Unfortunately, it has caused some to become judgmental, over-bearing, hostile, belligerent, and unforgiving. I doubt this latter category is what any religion had in mind.