Category Archives: Religion - Page 4

The Blame Game

Posted by on September 7, 2010 4 comments

A thread on Science and morality on the Tea House got me thinking.  Points were made about atrocities, this historical monster was an atheist, and then denials and counter points.  It’s always unsurprising to see these things and to be honest, I find such arguments draining, as you can just spin your wheels for ages and not get anywhere.  So, I thought I’d write a quick post to put my views on this on the record.

The row over atrocities attributed to religion vs those attributed to atheism is getting the cart firmly before the horse and missing the key component .. people.  If someone is going to commit these sort of atrocities they will, they will simply use whatever they have to hand as an excuse.  To blame it on a system is to pass the buck and delude ourselves that Humans aren’t naturally capable of such things.  No, no, it was that nasty opposing system.  Regardless, it still needed people who were willing to do the things.

To realise this is unpleasant as it acknowledges that we all have a dark side, lurking in our psyches.  Now, that really doesn’t sit well with a lot of people, they’d rather deny it and pretend the perpetrators aren’t human.  Which is odd, because I can’t think of any other creature that would behave like that.

That denial is a shame as the only way to effectively deal with this (and I have written about this before) is to acknowledge it and humbly accept it.

The Consequences of Evolution

Posted by on September 2, 2010 4 comments

In the past couple of posts I’ve been talking about evolution, now I hope to wrap up this short series of posts.  I’ve mentioned the reasons that I think it’s the truth, but I’ve not really mused about the opposition.  It’s an interesting question, why do people shout so loudly about evolution?  It seems to me that it’s not just faith, but given the strident approach and the volume, I’m wondering if it runs a little deeper.

Why do I say that it’s not just faith?  Well, there are plenty of religious moderates for who evolution seems to coexist quite happily with their faith.  There are plenty of accommodations that can be made along the lines of “God started it all, evolution is just one of the tools he chose to use” and so on and so forth.  The thing is that all of this requires the understanding of the believer to change.  The believer needs to think about it, question, and then allow their personal theology to evolve.

Bingo.  That’s why the screaming.  Even for a moderate, evolution requires a reassessment of their beliefs, mental accommodations must be made.   This begins to shift the so-called “rock of faith”.  I keep talking about a shifting of the rock on which a religious faith is built, now I can start to illustrate a little more clearly what I mean.

Now … If I was a fundamentalist this sort of thing would keep me awake at night.  Let’s think about this in and I’ll invoke a question that I first saw on “Atheist Thought”, the site of an atheist writer from the Orkneys called Eric Stockton.

When  reality puts a spanner in the works of a dogmatic religious system, the adherents have a limited series of choices.  You can remain utterly fundamentalist and deny reality, but anyone who’s seen the courtroom scenes in “Inherit the Wind” knows how bad that makes you look.  Or, you go down the rabbit hole……

The question is “Given the words of Matthew ch 6, v5-6, how do you justify the practice of collective prayer and worship in church? “.  I’ve given the exact wording from the NIV below.

5. And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.

6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

OK, we have a contradiction between scripture and practise here.  Of course the question above could have been phrased “Given the overwhelming and ever increasing evidence for evolution.  Given the fact it produces the goods in both science and industry and is therefore beyond any reasonable doubt.  How do you justify the Adam and Eve story in Genesis?” But whichever, let’s take the red pill and see how deep the rabbit hole goes……

We have but 3 real choices:

1.  The religion’s founder was wrong. Our first option, this is the least acceptable as a religion based on the word of a mistaken founder simply won’t do.  What else was he wrong about? There’s not much else to be said there, it’s the nuclear option.

2.  The scripture was mis-reported / mis-transmitted. Again a fairly nuclear option, it means that there is absolutely no guarantee that any of the scripture is reliable.  I’ve covered this before in my essays, and in summary, I consider this a highly likely thing.

3.  It’s all open to interpretation.  This is the option I’ve seen used as the main answer to this problem it leads straight into “Cafeteria Christianity”.  Once you can interpret things anyway you please, the centre cannot hold.  Frankly, at this point it’s all over for any orthodoxy and fundamentalism bar the shouting.  You may as well simply do as you please, so what’s the point?

Given the above, I can see why Evolution has caused such a controversy.  It is indeed the wolf at the door of dogmatic religions.  I should point out that I see no threat to Paganism or some forms of Buddhism in Evolution, I also plan to move on from this now, I think I’ve said my piece.

Unable to see, or unwilling to?

Posted by on August 24, 2010 No comments

I’ve been slowly working my way through Carl Sagan’s book ‘The Demon Haunted World’.  It’s a great book and if you haven’t read it, I strongly recommend it.

The chapter I’m reading concerns gullibility and specifically mentions a very revealing ruse involving an invented entity called “Carlos”.  The ruse was devised by the Australian “60 minutes” program with the assistance of James Randi.  It was intended to make a point about gullibility at all levels of society, and it succeeded spectacularly.  Parts of the media were drawn in, as was a section of the public.  Statements and literature were created and put out by Randi that made little sense, with glaring errors in them, and they passed without comment.

The part that interests me the most, is what happened when they admitted the deception; there was a small hardcore of people who still believed!  The most interesting thing we can do here is wonder why.  I mean it’s all been admitted, cards laid on the table plain as day, yet still a small number of people believed.  Why?

I think that it comes down to the level of investment that we have as individuals in these things.  A week or two ago, in my “Religion of Society” series I observed that people will defend their position automatically due to the level of emotional investment they have there.  This is true of societies and religions as these are the things you grew up in, they helped shape who you are, and your answers to life’s questions are framed in their context.  This would mean that a change in those areas could involve a lot of effort.  But why should faith healers and other practitioners of pseudoscience merit this level of attachment?

Perhaps here we should consider the role of delusion, the pseudosciences can offer a comforting alternative world view to the conventional.  Perhaps a faith healer’s miracle seems to affirm that God considers you worth healing, that your faith is strong enough?  The Spiritualists and Clairvoyants offer other forms of comfort; against death, the pain of loss and the seeming randomness of life.

These things are comforting, for sure.  But that doesn’t make them correct, in fact some of these things can (and do) prove fatal.  This is all one more reason that I think critical thought should be firmly on the school curriculum.

A Positive Definition

Posted by on August 17, 2010 No comments

I was reading an article on a web page that came to my attention courtesy of the Birmingham Humanists blog a few days ago. In it the author covered a few things, mainly related to Humanism and differences among some sub groups.  But while doing that, he mentioned the fact that we usually focus more on our differences than the things that we have in common.

What piqued my interest further was the mention of ‘pushing away’ as a process.  The idea was that the author had defined himself during his formative years as a Humanist by pushing away from elements of religion and superstition.  He then pointed out that we tend to carry this process over to people.

The author described his own growth into Humanism in these terms, he talked of the things he was pushing away from.  He then observed that many Humanists still do this, which helps to cause much fracturing in the community.  The whole thing put me in mind of “The Judean Peoples Front” and the “Peoples Front of Judea” in Monty Python’s The Life of Brian.

In my view the author was describing a Taoist style process of definition by negation.  In other words that’s when you define a thing by what it’s not.  The Tao itself tends to be defined in these terms, and as you’re tend to be thinking in terms of emptiness it’s a natural way to do it.

Defining a stance by negation might seem like allowing others to take the initiative, that Humanism can only be defined by it’s opposition to much of religious thought, but it isn’t necessarily the case.  Of course, the danger for Humanism in this is that we risk losing sight of the positive expression of our stance.  We know what we’re against, but what how well do we put across what we’re for?  Do Humanists risk becoming better known for haranguing believers than offering a better alternative to religious indoctrination?

My comment here is that definition by negation does not have to be seen as reactionary and negative.  I could say that I’m “against indoctrination” or I could say that I’m “for free thought”.  This goes deeper than spin, as expressing these things positively will build habits of thought that I feel will prove very beneficial and much more attractive.

The Religion of Society Part 4 – Finale

Posted by on August 15, 2010 No comments

Welcome to the final instalment of my essay on The Religion of Society. You can find previous parts on my essays page. I’m going to try and draw everything to a conclusion now and see what we have.

I think I’ve successfully made my point that there are a great many comparisons that can be drawn between a society and a religious system. The more interesting question is why.

It could I suppose be speculated that if the structure of a religion is divinely inspired, that the divine structures inspired those of society. I have to say that I’ve not seen any evidence of a divine inspiration in religion that sways me, so I would tend towards shelving this idea pending further evidence.

This leads to my own view. I think that both religions and societies have a common source, a source that can easily be seen by everyone. It’s in plain view, just look in the mirror. Human beings tend to form power hierarchies and have a tendency to follow a leader, form social structures and codify rules. We respond to incentives and avoid punishment, both systems follow this “carrot and stick” approach. There’s a pay-off for following the system. This also means that if something comes along to threaten the carrot (be it atheists or anarchists) then we attack to protect the pay-off. Not just for ourselves, but for those we care about.

Both systems do just that and inspire these sort of responses. Religion came first, but the growth of secular society came later with the divine element left out of the recipe as science subjected it to a withering hail of fire. My view on the future is that secular society will keep growing, it’s a view that seems backed up by the figures I’ve seen on the subject. I do, of course, write with a British perspective on these figures.

Drawing this to a close, I’d like to talk about things that have occurred to me since I wrote this essay. It occurs to me that this could all be viewed as tribalism, both systems could be said to be tribal, with leaders, followers, rules, social structures, etc. But that discussion is a bit big for this post, so maybe another time. Secondly, when I started writing this post, I realised I hadn’t discussed for corporations in all of this. But that too is something I will leave to another time and for your own reflections.

The Religion of Society Part 3 – The Priesthood

Posted by on August 8, 2010 1 comment

Welcome to the third part of my series on The Religion of Society. If you’re new to this series, you can find the whole series linked on my articles page. So without further ado, I’ll get started.

I’ve previously drawn parallels between the structure of a religion and that of a society. I’ve covered the tenets and also the structure, but what about the priesthood? In my opinion, it can certainly be said that society has a pseudo-priesthood. A religion has an easily recognisable priesthood (most of the time), but a society? The function of a priesthood in society seems to me to be performed by politicians, the judiciary and celebrities, though whether this is knowingly is a matter for some debate. Of course, there is a more grass roots presence, I have always considered Paganism to be more like that. Similarly in society, we have local celebrities “characters” and also local politicians. These people might be home grown, but they have a similar (if locally limited) effect to the national and international public figures.

The ‘priesthood’ creates and interprets the ‘scriptures’ and helps enforce the ‘orthodoxy’ of the society or religion. In a religion, the creation of scripture and orthodoxy tends to be more formally done. For example, the Council of Nicea in 325AD; which resulted in the creation of an orthodox Christian doctrine. A similar thing happened in Buddhism with the first Buddhist Council in 543-542 BCE. Interpretation is a matter for priests and laymen were certainly discouraged from putting their own interpretations on things. Of course, things are different these days, though I think this is due to the influence of western society on religion.

In society, this tends to be an ongoing process. Laws are passed, repealed and amended. Then interpreted in courts and enforced with varying levels of strictness. Celebrities set or magnify trends and crazes and have an impact that neither law nor religion can emulate. But all of this does have a coherence, think national character, each nation has a distinct flavour.

Of course, both priesthoods are really part of a feedback process. As society got more sophisticated, the actual interpretations evolved a little as did the attitudes of the religious priesthood. Less of the fire and brimstone, more of the meek and mild. A message that might work on a deprived inner city congregation might not be so effective on a wealthier suburban audience. The sermons might also reflect that communities challenges, what they’re going through and would have to be tailored a little to their group character. So the priesthood could be seen, in ways, to act as a weathervane (or a mirror) for their followers.

Politicians are the same, they’ll change their tune quite readily. Celebrities caught getting a little too far away from orthodoxy will often issue public mea culpas, apologising to their public. It’s an interesting turn of phrase that one, their public, or maybe their flock? Worth a ponder in my opinion.

Ascension to the priesthood is strictly controlled in both cases, in the regular priesthood there is the seminary (or priest school). A society has various methods, taking the route into politics is one and from there into local or national government. Non-politicians can try the celebrity route, either the old fashioned way, or more recently via reality television. This does tend to lead to people who are famous for being famous, with no real idea what they contribute, but that’s getting off the subject.

OK, that concludes this part. I will attempt to write a shorter concluding part to wrap all this up and bring it to closure. With any luck I’ll manage it for next weekend, but no promises.

Creative Commons Acknowledgement.

The photo of the Priests Canteen is by sgatto and is under by-nc-nd.

The Religion of Society Part 2 – The Tenets of the “Faith”

Posted by on August 1, 2010 No comments

Welcome to the second part of my multi part essay exploring a few ideas on the parallels between Western society and religion. There is a previous essay which will also be linked on my essays page. Before I get started, I think I should define exactly what I’m talking about when I use the word ‘tenets’.

“a principle, belief, or doctrine generally held to be true; especially : one held in common by members of an organization, movement, or profession” – (http://www.merriam-webster.com/)

A few examples of the sort of thing I’m talking about are “transubstantiation”, “free market economics”,“virgin birth”,”the right to trial by jury”,”reincarnation” and ”freedom of speech”.

In both religion and society, the tenets of the system need to be accepted for a person to really take part properly. An inability to accept these tenets can be met with broadly similar consequences in both systems, a degree of ostracism with consequences for social standing. In religion, you might do penance and in society it can cause problems for your career.

The actual tenets themselves seem to be largely defined by a central authority, in religion this is usually a senior priesthood or charismatic founder, in society politicians and celebrities with the judiciary refining things as they go. The tenets of a religion are broadcast from the pulpit, while the tenets of a society are broadcast and reinforced by the mainstream media. Of course, people will reinforce the tenets among themselves to a degree as this is our group identity.

As I said earlier, acceptance of the tenets is required, but people being people the exact details can get a little fuzzy from place to place. The tenets can have local variances and you might also find that certain things aren’t accepted in some areas that are in others. A great example from the religious camp is the whole business of homosexual clergy in Anglicanism. It’s accepted in some places in the USA, but not in Africa. From the societal end of things, I can point out differences in approaches to banking and capitalism between the US and Europe. Europe seems more unionised and also has a better approach to work/life balance than the US. In addition to this, both systems have a spectrum of adherence from literal fundamentalists right through to liberals with a very flexible approach.

A final observation I want to make is that the tenets do evolve slowly, the Zeitgeist moves on, always changing gradually. Admittedly sometimes there is a bit of kicking and screaming along the way (women priests for example), but changes do happen over time. Despite the view that certain things are “built on a rock”, the rock itself does shift and change slowly.

OK, I’ll wrap this part up now as I feel that I’ve said everything I have to say on the tenets. I hope I’ll be able to have the next part ready in 7 days time.

Creative Commons Acknowledgement.

The bookshelf image is by Babblingdweeb and is licensed under by-nc-nd.