"...the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in
harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto."
The Varieties of Religious Experience, lecture 3
William James
Obviously, I don't agree with all religious ideas -- no one does!
But I'd like to particularly emphasize here my goal of discussing all viewpoints respectfully.
I've tried to make my own biases plain (you could say that's the point of this entire site):
I'm a philosophical materialist / naturalist (aka atheist) and a humanist. I strongly support the Scientific Method of inquiry, as against supernaturalism and literalism / legalism / textualism.
The omission here of any particular faith or sect is not from disrespect, but rather because I'm unaware of material from this tradition relevant to the concerns of this site. If you know of any, by all means contact me. Also, I don't think it's unreasonable or unfair to point out poor reasoning, a lack of empirical evidence, or harmful results of an idea, wherever they may be found.
In my Future of an Illusion I was concerned much less with the deepest sources of the religious feeling than with what the common man understands by his religion -- with the system of doctrines and promises which on the one hand explains to him the riddles of this world with enviable completeness, and, on the other, assures him that a careful Providence (aka "God")), will watch over his life and will compensate him in a future existence for any frustrations he may suffer here.
The common man cannot imagine this Providence otherwise than in the figure of an enormously exalted father. Only such a being can understand the needs of the children of men and be softened by their prayers and placated by the signs of their remorse.
The whole thing is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able rise above this view of life.
It is still more humiliating to discover how large a number of people living in to-day, who cannot but see that this religion is not tenable, nevertheless try to defend it piece by piece in a series of pitiful rearguard actions.
One would like to mix among the ranks of the believers in order to meet these philosophers, who think they can rescue the God of religion by replacing him by an impersonal, shadowy and abstract principle, and to address them with the warning words: 'Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain!'
And if some of the great men of the past acted in the same way, no appeal can be made to their example: we know why they were obliged to.
Let us return to the common man and to his religion -- the only religion which ought to bear that name. The first thing that we think of is the well-known saying of one of our great poets and thinkers concerning the relation of religion to art and science:Wer Wissenschaft und Kunst besitz, hat auch Religion; Goethe Zahme Xenien IX
Wer jene beide nicht besitzt, der habe Religion.
Civilization and its Discontents
by Sigmund Freud. James Strachey trans.
"The Internet, and particularly the World Wide Web, was still in its infancy in early 1995. However, it was growing at a furious rate. From about 130 web sites in mid-1993, it had expanded to about 20,000 sites in the spring of 1995. (There were a grand total of 20,000 web sites in the world.) A scan of the WWW using the Lycos search engine produced only four hits for the phrase religious tolerance: two were essays by members of the Baha'i Faith; one was by a Baptist minister; the fourth described religious tolerance in ancient Egypt. A site promoting tolerance seemed to be an ideal project...."
"Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing -- fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things. In this world we can now begin a little to understand things, and a little to master them by help of science, which has forced its way step by step against the Christian religion, against the churches, and against the opposition of all the old precepts. Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations.Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a better place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it."
The section "Fear, the Foundation of Religion"
from "Why I Am Not A Christian" by Bertrand Russell
- Links are mine - ed.
"The White Robed Benedictines serve the Contemporary Catholic and all people.
As such they are neither Roman Catholic norOrthodox Catholic, Liberal Catholic nor Old Catholic.... The White Robed Benedictines are just Catholic.
The Monks, in the traditional spirit of Benedictine hospitality, offer without question the Word and Sacraments to everyonewho requests them. The Monks appreciate that Jesus never really said No to anyone."
"The following quote from Albert Einstein also offers a good Deistic description of God: "My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God." "
"Among those who do not already have rigid views on the subject, this film is likely to inspire more serious thought on the nature of Jesus than any other ever made. That is the irony about the attempts to suppress this film; it is a sincere, thoughtful investigation of the subject....Scorsese and Schrader have not made a film that panders to the audience--as almost all Hollywood religious epics traditionally have. They have paid Christ the compliment of taking him and his message seriously...I cannot think of another film on a religious subject that has challenged me more fully. The film has offended those whose ideas about God and man it does not reflect. But then, so did Jesus."
"God's Word was, is, and always shall be with God. God created all things through his Word. His Word was spoken to thepatriarchs. Moses said that the Word of God was in the hearts and mouths of the people of Israel; this same Word came tothe prophets. God sent his Word to earth in the human form of his Son, Jesus Christ, who preached that Word and personifiedit, who lived in the flesh and died on the cross and was raised to life. That same Word of God now sits on the right hand ofGod and speaks in the hearts of Christ's followers and will judge all things. There is no scriptural basis for the claim that theBible is the Word of God, for the scriptures do not exalt themselves, but they testify to Christ. From time immemorial peoplehave tried to fit God into forms that they could touch, hold, study, classify, and finally control. People are still trying to do thisby clinging to the unscriptural view that the Word of God is a book."
Human perceptive processes are deeply predisposed to see aspects and influences of living things -- and especially of people -- everywhere in the world. This makes good adaptive sense -- suppose, walking through the woods, you see a dark hunched shape ahead of you. Is it a boulder? Is it a bear? The smart guess is "bear" -- those who guess "bear" and find "boulder" instead leave more descendents than those who guess "boulder" and find "bear"! And since the doings of other people are the most important influences, for good and ill, on human lives, it's especially important to bet on the presence of such
doings whenever there's some uncertainty.Thus, absent other judgemental methods, people are predisposed to perceive conscious agents behind all manner of phenomena -- rain is caused by the rain god, illness and other misfortune by myriad demons, the moral order of the Universe by a creator God. Even Enlightenment rationalists are happy to formalize this process --are you willing to bet wrong on eternal damnation?
"In all the blather about this case on Talk Radio, everybody seems to think they know the difference between a religion and a cult. I see absolutely no difference. Roman Catholics claim, and evidently sincerely believe, that they engage in cannibalism in their "Holy Communion"; Mormons believe Native Americans are Hebrews; and I can't think of a single "cult" that believes anything crazier than most of the other major religions. I regard a "cult" as a religion small enough to be easily victimized by the authorities and a religion as a cult big enough to force the authorities to treat it with respect. And that is the only difference I can see."
"There is a great thudding taboo in any discussion of Africa. ... The suppressed topic? The African belief in spirits and spells and ancestors and black magic. ...
These are not trivial side-beliefs, like vague fears of black cats crossing your path. They are at the core of many Africans' understanding of themselves and the world. ...
In most indigenous African religions, "God" is pretty much inaccessible to humans. But they believe every human is surrounded by a swirl of spirits -- of the dead, of the living who can temporarily leave their bodies, of nature -- that are constantly at work. ... Life is a constant exhausting process of wooing the spirits and warding them off. They can be communicated with directly, but it is easier to talk through the local soothsayers and witch doctors. Africans who describe themselves as Muslims and Christians will often retain these traditional beliefs not far beneath the surface.
These beliefs -- like all religions -- can bring both sweet, illusory comfort and intense terror. ...
These beliefs are often the best story people can tell to make the world seem bearable again. ... It's the purest expression I know of Christopher Hitchens' explanation for all religion: 'We're afraid of the dark.' ...
Yet along with this obvious comfort there is what Naipaul -- and so many Africans -- call "the dark side." Once you cede power to an invisible force for which there is no evidence -- whether it's Jesus or Allah or a dead child -- you cede power to other human beings who can then claim to use those invisible forces against you. ...
So the same beliefs that make life bearable can make it unbearable again. Is there a way out of this trap? Naipaul is characteristically pessimistic, suggesting the most extreme expressions of these beliefs are inherent to Africa and as eternal as the savannahs. ...
Juliana Bernard is an ordinary young African woman who knew, from childhood, that claims of black magic and witchcraft were false and could be debunked. ... So she set up a group who traveled from village to village, offering the people a deal: For just one month, take these medicines and these vaccinations, and leave the "witches" alone to do whatever they want without persecution. See what happens. If people stop getting sick, you'll know my theories about germs are right, and you can forget about the evil spirits.
Just this small dose of rationality -- offered by one African to another -- had revolutionary effects. Of course the superstitions didn't vanish. The most scientifically advanced society in the world, the United States, still has candidates for high office who have to deny being witches. But now they were contested, and the rationalist alternative had acquired passionate defenders in every community."
"The data in the pie graph or chart comes from Nazarene Church Growth Research.Repeating: I myself am an atheist, philosophical naturalist and materialist.
Another survey -- by the International Bible Society -- indicated that 83% of all Christians make their commitment to Jesus between the ages of 4 and 14, that is, when they are children or early youth. The Barna Research Group surveys demonstrate that American children ages 5 to 13 have a 32% probability of accepting Christ, but youth or teens aged 14 to 18 have only a 4% probability of doing so. Adults age 19 and over have just a 6% probability of becoming Christians."
"... it is amazing how childishly gullible humans are. There are, for example, so many different religions - each of them claiming to have the truth, each saying that their truths are clearly superior to the truths of others - how can someone possibly take any of them seriously? I mean, that's insane."
"What did you do this weekend? Those short of a decent answer should heed the advice of the French philosopher Anatole France: 'Without lies, humanity would perish of despair and boredom.'
More than a quarter of adults feel forced to lie when asked about their weekend activities, according to new research.
... a poll of 5,000 adults found that pressure to maintain the illusion of an active social life led to more than 27 per cent of adults being "economical with the truth". ...
Frank Furedi, a sociologist at the University of Kent, refers to this as "identity construction". He said: 'The older we get, the harder we find it publicly to acknowledge loneliness and isolation. This phenomenon comes from the need to show others we are still moving in line with our aspirations and dreams. Those are the narratives we have set ourselves.'
Should it matter? Ultimately not, Mr Furedi said. 'In the end we are all reconciled to the banality of everyday existence.' ...
For the worst-case scenario, the last word should go to Dorothy Rowe, a psychologist and the author of Why We Lie. 'Whenever a significant proportion of the ideas that make up our sense of being a person are disconfirmed, we feel ourselves shattering, crumbling, disappearing,' she said. ...
'If we do not understand that it is merely our ideas, we find the falling apart utterly terrifying. We do whatever we can to prevent this from happening again. The most popular method is to lie.' "
"In my conversations with religious believers, I'll often ask, --
'Why do you think God or the supernatural exists? What makes you think this is true? What evidence do you have for this belief?'
Partly I'm just curious; I want to know why people believe what they do. Plus, I think it's a valid question: it's certainly one I'd ask about any other claim or opinion. And if I'm wrong about my atheism -- if there's good evidence for religion that I haven't seen yet -- I want to know. I'm game. Show me the money.
But when I ask these questions, I almost never get a straight answer.
What I typically get is a startling assortment of conversational gambits deflecting the question.
I get excuses for why believers shouldn't have to provide evidence. Vague references to other people who supposedly have evidence, without actually pointing to said evidence. Irrelevant tirades about mean atheists. Venomous anger at how disrespectful and intolerant I am to even ask the question."
"I've hatched some questions you may find useful. They're designed to show that church members, even the most ardent worshipers, are skeptics, too -- because they doubt every magical system except their own. If a churchman berates you, perhaps you could reply like this:
You're an unbeliever, just like me. You doubt many sacred dogmas. Let me show you:"
(Lists about two dozen religious beliefs sincerely held by thousands or millions of people now or in the past.)
"I'll bet there isn't a church member anywhere who doesn't think that all those supernatural beliefs are goofy -- except for the one he believes."