In an article in the Guardian the other day I read the following from novelist Ian McEwan, who, it turns out, sheltered Salman Rushdie after the fatwa came out:
Faith is at best morally neutral and at worst a vile mental distortion.
This strikes me as exactly right.
Clearly, based on my posting history here, I’m still involved in an ongoing process of trying to make sense of religious belief, both descriptively and normatively. It’s a fascinating thing about human beings that we create religious stories, theologies, rituals, and institutions of such variety, and that these practices play such a key role in our history. So there’s the descriptive project of figuring out how these practices work, why it is that people believe in gods and demons, angels and healing waters, sin and repentance. And there’s also, I think, a set of questions that we face personally and politically about what attitude we ought to take toward religious phenomenon, if only (but of course not only) because of the fatwas issued by believers of many stripes.
I admit I’ve been attracted by the pugnaciousness of the so-called “New Atheists,” Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. In a culture that sometimes seems saturated with muddled, feel-good religious claptrap (I’m looking at you, Rick Warren), I think they’re doing us a service by calling bullshit on the whole enterprise. It’s refreshing to hear intelligent people make explicit arguments against the existence of God and against the crap that passes for reasoning in many religious circles, and it’s a vital corrective to public discourse.
One problem, though, is that two of the four (Dawkins and Hitchens) are well known, world-class assholes, which should make anyone inclined to agree with them take a look at the company they’re keeping. There’s also a sickening degree of self-congratulation in the (online) circles where people cheer for atheism, with people reveling in an attitude of superiority that they don’t believe in God, unlike the unwashed/unlearned/sleeping masses.
This superiority is easy to fall into, but it’s only possible if you ignore the intelligent people who do believe in some sort of god and, more importantly, ignore the actual characteristics of religious belief as a force in real people’s lives. My disagreement with the New Atheists isn’t the atheism — God knows I’m on board with that — but with how they ignore what we might call the pragmatics of religion and religious belief.
Religion serves many different purposes for many different people. William James documented how people’s religious experiences are shaped by what they need psychologically. Do all religious people really believe all the doctrines espoused by their churches’ official creeds? Actually, most don’t even know all their churches’ doctrines. (I’ve never met a Catholic who can correctly explain the Immaculate Conception without consulting Wikipedia.) Some believe; a surprising number, even in quite fundamentalist faiths, have a greater or lesser degree of doubt.
In my experience as a former believer and former missionary, some people participate in religious life because it makes them feel closer to God. Others feel an obligation based on a single, powerful experience in the past that “proved” to them the correctness of the way they’ve chosen. Others, many others, go to church because they enjoy the sociability and community, or because they fear the loss of community or shame from family and friends if they were to stop participating. Plenty of people go to church to advance their careers or gain other social and sometimes financial benefits, while others participate in religious activity because it helps them make sense of life, gives them strength in times of emotional difficulty, or helps them ward off a fear of death.
In short, I think some people are religious primarily for specifically religious reasons, while others are religious primarily because religion in some form or other can meet needs that all of us have, even atheists — and these people happened to find religious practices that met their needs, sometimes in ways that were not available outside of religion, for whatever reason.
So I support those who call bullshit on religion as they defend reason in the public sphere, and I support the strengthening of non-religious institutions, communities, and narratives that can meet people’s needs without resorting to supernatural explanations. But I doubt we’ll reach a point any time soon as a species that the privilege of living without God is available to everyone. We must recognize, I believe, that religion meets genuine needs in people’s lives.
But recognizing that religion, as a complicated set of institutions, practices, and beliefs, can do good for individuals, still leaves a question about the central fact of religion, faith. Which is why I like McEwan’s formulation:
Faith is at best morally neutral and at worst a vile mental distortion.
Some people, maybe many people, need to believe in God. To the extent that faith is necessary, then, it’s on the same moral level as pissing: go right ahead if you must, but don’t get it on anyone else. As for the “vile mental distortion” part, I don’t think we need to argue the truth of that at this point.
Totally on board with “at worst a vile mental distortion”; but I’ve always felt on some level like “at best” there is something really uplifting and good about faith, based on some people I’ve known (and other people I’ve read about) who believed in God and were good people in a way that seemed linked.
dave, i want to go over this more carefully later in the day, but let me just say this. Dave Hickey has started writing again for Art in America. In his first article in the series, September 2008, titled “Pagans” I finally understood his meaning and use of religious language.
He frequently uses a religious vocabulary, words like “faith” and “redemption” and ” sacrifice” but uses them, and has always used them within the context of humanism.
Yeah, yeah I know “Wow Lane, Dave Hickey continues to make sense of your life for you.” Well yeah, but that’s why they give people McCarthur grants, right?
What I appreciate about your thoughts here is the acknowledgement that belief can serve a very real human purpose – if people are willing to take dinner to someone who is sick because it is a kind thing to do or because Jesus would want them to – the point is, the person still gets dinner. But I also appreciate that faith is (ironically in true new Testament fashion) lived best as an internal driver of behavior vs. the need to change everyone else to fit your understanding of the universe. As you know by my postings (although I have backed off a bit in my religious writing because of my obvious and perhaps to some TGW-ers, unsettingly, attraction) I have very mixed feelings that range from my definite departure from organized religion to a still intriguing sense of or facination with spiritual knowing or experience. The fact is that while I may not believe in the God of my childhood – there does seem another layer to our existence that does not feel rooted in blood and neurons, something that connects us to “the river” and gives meaning to the mystery of our limitations. What I love about posts like this is that they keep the conversation going – which to your point – fanaticism of any flavor does not do – and respects the breadth of human imagination which to me the most kind thing we can do for each other.
something that connects us to “the river” and gives meaning to the mystery of our limitations
See this is what I mean by “good and uplifting” — I think the perception you’re talking about (one which I would like to have access to but never really have, to date) is responsible for a great deal of creative force in the world. I would be sorry to see it gone.
Dave, I will be back later to talk about this. I studied and was a part of most” book” and other smaller religions. At some point of my life, religion was my quest and search for God was my purpose in life, as I understood it.
TMK, you are confusing me. What’s with the two names?
Oh sorry, Natasha — I ordinarily post as TMK, for some reason I got mixed up this morning and posted a couple of comments under my real name.
“My point: Paganism functioned quite efficiently as a dominant spiritual idiom for three thousand years and, as far as I can tell, still does. In its cosmopolitain manifestations, classical pagan culture was no less ethical, aspirational or obsessed with meaning than our own; it was more attentive to the physical world, more sensitive to the manner of our social and commercial interaction, and more understanding of our lust for private pleasure and public adulation. More to the point, the founders of this republic built the refined residue of Rome’s pagan republic into the infrastructure of American governance with obvious effects on the shape and conduct of our lives.
What if we are living in a great pagan culture that is more visionary, more creative, less secular and less Christian than we dare imagine – a realm of dreams, magic, divination, visions and mercy – albeit with fundamentaltist birth defects? What if the virtues of our paganism are occluded by the guilty residue of our othodoxy, its vices exacerbated by their being named as vices? We already honor the light, do we not? Most of us worship the beauty of all that lives and breathes, and all of us, one would hope, unify our souls and bodies in the ecstasy of dancing. These guilty pleasures lack nothing to be redeemed but the power of ou belief in them. So what more do you want?”
From Dave Hickey’s “Pagans” Art in America, October 2008.
I have copies of the complete text in convenient pamphlet form ready for distribution.
This idea is THE solution to the KIDNAPPING of our spiritual longing by organized religion!
Rejoice rejoice, a prophet walks the earth again (and publishes in a nationally distributed monthly magazine!)
I suspect that if religious belief disappeared from the world, we’d have about the same amount of “creative force.” A lot of human creativity takes religious form, of course, but I would argue that that’s just because religion is a strong social force. It’s been stronger in the past, when nearly all creativity took religious form. Now that it’s waning somewhat, we see a lot more non-religious creativity. Dave Hickey’s on to something.
On the other hand, I do think it’s a problem for McEwan’s (and my) thesis that there are people who truly seem motivated to do good by their religious beliefs. I’m thinking of someone like James Carroll, the former Roman Catholic priest who is now an anti-war writer and activist whose book I noticed on my shelf this morning. Would he do what he does without his religious beliefs about social justice? And if his faith is integral to the good he does, is his faith actually a virtue, not “at best morally neutral”?
The way I read McEwan’s statement, I think he’s talking about faith as belief, not faith as the whole complex of religious commitment and practice. Carroll is praiseworthy for his activism, but he doesn’t get any extra points for doing that activism because of his faith, or for the act of believing in a God who demands justice for his children.
Does that work?
We NEED to believe. So “we” invent religion. We outgrow religion but we still need to believe, why? I don’t know.
I do know that I still have faith. Faith the the phone will ring. Faith that I’m still needed. Faith that my work will be meaningful and that I can have a meaningful role in society. Faith in humanity I suppose.
“What if the culture war of our time is NOT a global struggle between four low-blink rate fundamentalism, between Christian, Jewish, Islamic, and crypto-Marxist zealots? What if it is a war between fundamentalism itself, in the frenzy of its waning efficacy , and a newly refreshed, cosmopolitain paganism that dates back to Zoroaster? What is organized religion is all but defunct, and “secular society” no more than a euphamism for the prim denial of the physical world – another word for color blind?”
“Is Christian, Jewish, islamic, Sikh, Hindu, or Buddist virtue really superior to common decency, great art, great sex and good business? You have a choice. The options are out there.”
And to you Pandora. One who is in this discussion, and who openly admits to have “parted company with organized religion” could I persuade you to write a letter? This little campaign of mine IS working. Others ARE doing it.
And it feels SO FU**IN” great!
I promise you!
I am reading, Lane, the writing is lovely. And I am listening, your zeal is contagious, although I am predisposed since my son claims to be a pagan and I have read the Susan Cooper stories. But explain – A letter? Tell me more – did I miss something?
i’ll explain privately.
Some of you may be interested in Charles Taylor’s recent book, “A Secular Age.” Among other things, he attempts to deconstruct the story that we have all imbibed of the secularization of the west; Weber’s “disenchantment”; the death of God, etc.
I have so much to say…but no time to really do so.
Qualifying religion has always been a thing with me, and I appreciate you always being so open and intelligent with your posts and comment discussions on the subject. They are constantly interesting and, quite often, informative.
Dave, this is my indubitably unkempt version of some huddled ideas about this.
Religious talks are never-ending and impossible to reasonably conclude, above all, when various faiths are involved: hence, the religious wars. My personal journey from a Pegan or Pagan (by birth), to a Christian missionary (by conviction), to an Objectivist (by curiosity), to many many many others was not just a study of rituals and cannons, but a study of the human psyche. As a result, I reasoned that the intense role religion or non-religion plays in peoples’ lives is not only due to all of the aspects you have so nicely described here, but also to a strange human insecurity to lack trust in their superior capabilities, to avoid responsibility, to rely on and blame something greater than your average human (true for most religions, but not all.) Superiority permeates every religion as well as atheism. Fanatics stem from enclave consciousness (Jones Town, for example) as well as young age mixed with the societal duties (Islamic extremism). It really does not matter what religion or non-believe we are talking about, the psychological basis for it are rather similar. The fascinating part is that most religions have mysteries, which are not disclosed to the public. I find the human desire to do good out of fear for the afterlife very problematic. I think that the hegemony, which enables the church leaders to interpret, define, and dictate “good” and “bad” is, in fact, dangerous. Will the world be a better place without organized religion? Possibly. The important questions to ask then: What would happen to all of those “moral” people, who are currently doing “good” to get to their versions of heaven? Would there be Mother Teresa? Would there be lives saved? And then again, there have been more lives lost to the religious wars than all of the wars combined. There are so many questions, so many issues, and so many perspectives. The most important question of all: do you think the humankind is ultimately prepared to fire their gods?
PB, I thought that you were Pagan, at first; you have such a magical name :)
Lane, witches are alive and well and live among us :)
Fred Clarke’s post today includes the awesome, awesome line, “House-of-cards fundamentalism allows for no distinctions between babies and bathwater.”
Wow: I just found an awesome bit of writing about faith, from Fernando Pessoa’s Book of Disquiet:
I was born in a time when the majority of young people had lost faith in God, for the same reason their elders had had it — without knowing why. And since the human spirit naturally tends to make judgements based on feelings instead of reason, most of these young people chose Humanity to replace God. I, however, am the sort of person who is always on the fringe of what he belongs to, seeing not only the multitude he’s part of but also the wide-open spaces around it. That’s why I didn’t give up God as completely as they did, and I never accepted Humanity. I reasoned that God, while improbable, might exist, in which case he should be worshipped; whereas Humanity, being a mere biological idea and signifying nothing more than the animal species we belong to, was no more deserving of worship than any other animal species [in which case, I'm totally going with Koala -- ed.]. The cult of Humanity, with its rites of Freedom and Equality, always struck me as a revival of those ancient cults in which gods were like animals or had animal heads.
and so what underpins the need to worship anything? why? and what form does worship take? . . . and why again?
#16 Oh, that is so unreasonable! What does “wide-open spaces” mean? That is so abstract. He claims to be different by believing in God? “Humanity is a biological idea” and the desire to feel secure under God’s wing is not? God “should be worshipped” based solely on the probability of His existence? “Freedom and equality” are rites belonging to a cult? That’s some serious reasoning! Wow! It’s the second time this week, I want to slap a person, because of how much they irritate me with their claims of reason. The first one was David Chik, who used physics however he pleased and called his foundation-less little essay “A New Physical Theory of Precognition,” which was infested with nonsense, a theory.