My answer to the anti-God rant at Delaware Liberal
Mar 9th, 2009 by David Anderson
The fine folks at Delaware Liberal put the loony left fringe out on full display with a post declaring a big threat to organized religion because a small percentage of Americans (15%) in the poll no longer claim identification with one. The post itself was misguided not loony, but the responses went wild.
It has long been known that a lot of people who claimed a religion for cultural identification even though they did not have any other links with their faith. Whether or not people identify loosely with a faith is not a factor in whether or not religion is rising or falling in society. The fact that Church attendance is solid and the fact that orthodoxy is on a rise does not deter them from wondering are we seeing the death of organized religion.
An anonymous poster said “Sorry, but Jesus showed no new way. I really recommend that you study the Jesus seminars and the history of the gospels before you ascribe such moral nobility to this stuff.
For example, “love thy neighbor” in its time was meant only for your Jewish neighbors.
And the whole “turn your other cheek” is simply a message to oppressed people not to fight your oppressors and enslavers. What is moral about that? Of course, since the gospel Jesus never spoke a single word against slavery, a fundamental evil of his day, it is not surprising that the gospels have him mouthing the wishes of the Romans and slave owners”.
Unfortunately, misnomers like this one are affecting our public policy. If the poster actually read the Gospels instead of a seminar about Jesus, he/she would know that Jesus went out of his way to apply “love your neighbor” to non-Jews (that was the point of the Good Samaritan–a person who lives the faith is better than one who talks the faith even if not a Jew). If he/she studied Jewish culture of the first century as he claims, he would know that slavery was not an issue and that the Jews historically believed in indentured servant hood. You could sell your labor for up to 7 years. Turn the other cheek referred to honor duals. Don’t fight out of pride. We are more valuable. The poster was off on every count. Too much Bill Mahar and too little Jesus.
That wouldn’t matter too much except for the fact people of that ilk are busily rewriting our history. They are rewriting our laws. They are writing our entertainment. They are corrupting our culture. Religion is the single most effective tool of civilization without it we would still be barbarians. As one writer put it if there were not a God, we would have had to invent one. Fortunately, he invented us first.
David, I don’t want to come across as rude, but reading this…
“That wouldn’t matter too much except for the fact people of that ilk are busily rewriting our history. They are rewriting our laws. They are writing our entertainment. They are corrupting our culture. Religion is the single most effective tool of civilization without it we would still be barbarians. As one writer put it if there were not a God, we would have had to invent one. Fortunately, he invented us first.”
…all I can think is, “surely you jest”. I imagine I’m treading into dangerous territory here, but in the interest of intelligent discussion, surely you’re not suggesting that religion is the only thing standing between men and barbarianism. I’m sure I needn’t remind you of the wars and injustices brought about specifically by institutional religion.
I disagree with your concept that wars and injustices were brought about by institutionalized religion. That is manifestly untrue. Wars and injustices exist in the human condition because we are selfish beings. Some people have manipulated religion to justify their agenda just like they manipulate everything else. Societies that claim to be religious or that are irreligious have war and injustice within them. Government is the inspires, runs, and manipulates war. Though I will say that sometimes war is necessary to prevent a greater harm.
I would contend religious societies are more likely to confront the injustices within them.
I’m not saying it’s the only cause, but that is has. Regardless of how much of a buffer it creates between injustice and justice, the fact is that it has actively spawned war. The inquisition, the conquest of the Americas, 9/11 and countless suicide bombings It keeps people from doing harm because of their fear of an ultimate consequence. But if the religion leaves room for an act of injustice to bring an ultimate reward, people are going to behave accordingly.
Religion is a positive force in society to the same extent that a pervasive standing army is. It creates the rules, and gives a compelling reason to follow them, but it also leaves ample room for potential abuse. Faith is useful to society because it comes with a) comfort and b) a supposedly absolute moral guide. People treat it as children treat commands from their parents; they are not to be questioned, and to be followed explicitly.
My problem with faith as a whole (not, mind you, personal religious adherence) is that it inherently discourages legitimate problem solving and a search for understanding. To accept that life’s questions can be answered without evidence is, to me, insane.
What difference is it if you answer life’s questions anyway. If you answer them then you die, so what? Is not death the cruelest of jokes on us? No matter what we think we accomplish, we never know if it mattered. We are like a vapor which vanishes. What is insane about not wasting what time we have answering questions that won’t matter?
At least that is what I would have to believe if I took a materialistic mindset.
That’s your response? It’s OK that religion subdues the quest for truth, because being subservient, ignorant and happy is better than being independent, informed and realistic? By finding legitimate answers to our questions, we’re making that the lives of future generations will be of a higher quality. Imagine if Darwin, Copernicus or Galileo had been persuaded (it’s not for a lack of effort that they weren’t) that their inquiries were irrelevant. Imagine if archaic pseudosciences like alchemy, phrenology and astrology hadn’t been replaced by chemistry, neurology and astronomy (or, for something more current, if creationism wasn’t replaced by biology). Imagine if we still held the ancient beliefs that solar eclipses were giants eating the sun, that the aurora borealis was a fox running through the sky, that meteor showers were signs of the endtimes. If philosophers had been replaced by scripture alone. You will be hard-pressed to find a humanist who would honestly say that these ventures have not been worthwhile. And while very few theists will admit the same, those that try to quell current scientific practice are vast in numbers.
The fact is the secularist are the ones suppressing inquiry. They bully people with other views on evolution (even though that field is troubled), global warming, anything that they can get money from in the name of research, and just about any politically correct subject. That is a future post so I will save it.
That is my response. If you are a secularist, what does it matter? You ducked the question. That is your right. Thanks for the discussion.