The Foreigner

A few years ago, my fictional friend Bob left England, where he’d [...]]]> This is the final post in the series of six arguments against religion, and it is subtle and very counterintuitive to most people. I’m going to use a couple of analogies to introduce it, which I hope will help me explain it.

The Foreigner

A few years ago, my fictional friend Bob left England, where he’d lived his whole life, and came to the United States. Of course, here in the US we speak a different dialect of English. He could understand everyone ok, but he began to wonder whether he’d been speaking incorrectly all this time. He worked hard and eventually managed to change his speech, so that he sounded just like an American. But when he talked to his parents back home, they were sad that he’d abandoned his native dialect. They entreated him to talk properly again. He was torn! How could he decide which way to speak?…

The Artist

I have another fictional friend, Terry, who is a pianist, a master of European classical music. He lived in the early 18th century. When he was well established in his career and famous throughout Europe, he heard a Turkish military band and was amazed to hear, for the first time, rhythms and chords unknown in the west. He began incorporating Turkish patterns into his compositions. Some called his music barbaric, or not music at all. He himself wondered if it was really music, or just noise; but he could not deny its compelling power, and the way, as he composed and played, it transported him out of his body into regions of light he had never felt before.

Language, Art, and Spirit

In both of these analogies, you might be wondering what the big deal is for Bob and Terry. Why is it so difficult for Bob and his family to handle the realities of a single language with multiple dialects, and for Bob to change his speech to match the people around him? And why is Terry’s musical community so committed to one style of music, and so dismissive of his need to draw from more than one artistic tradition?

Well, why is it so hard for people to get a grip on the idea that more than one religion has value? That more than one religion might be a True Path? That multiple religious traditions might serve as inspiration for a life’s journey?

Some messages depend crucially on their medium. Haiku, or Hamlet, cannot be translated without losing an essential part of their message. You cannot play Beethoven’s Ode to Joy on bagpipes without losing something (and, perhaps, gaining something else).

This applies to religions and cultures as much as to language and music. Handel’s Messiah is music that sings most powerfully within the context of a messianic religion; its exultation simply cannot be translated into Zen Buddhism. And Zen’s simple koans, which open the doors of perception and enlightenment, are nothing but nonsense in Catholicism. Should Catholicism be abandoned because it doesn’t have koans? Should Zen be abandoned because it doesn’t have the Messiah? Is there a way to learn both, live both, embody both?

Religiodiversity

A religion is a lot more than a set of beliefs. A religion — especially an old religion — carries with it a wealth of culture and feeling that should not be lightly cast aside. At the same time, remaining in just one religion, subscribing to it alone and refusing to open your mind and heart to others, is incredibly limiting. This applies not just to the appreciation of beauty, but to the perception of universal truths.

And universal truths are not just simple statements like “love thy neighbor” or “life is suffering”; there is weight behind these words. The development of the concept of “love” in European culture over the past 2000 years is a cultural achievement that is worth learning, as is the Buddhist concept of dukkha and the Chinese concept of the Tao.

The argument here is not against religion in general, nor against any particular religion, or even against any particular belief system like atheism or agnosticism. It is against having just one religion, or just one belief system.

Synthesis and Genesis

Among my circle of friends, there are a lot of folks who have synthesized their own religions. This applies not only to my pagan friends, but also my Christian ones. After all, in modern America, there are at least a dozen popular competing versions of Christianity, and individual Christians synthesize new versions all the time — piecing together their own spiritualities from things they’ve heard here and there, their own experiences, and Spirit whispering in their ears.

Nevertheless, most of my friends have not given up the idea that there is One Truth out there, One Reality, and even One Path to salvation or enlightenment.

Bah! How can there be One Truth when I know people who have seen fairies, played with the animal spirits of the land, danced the Lakota Sun Dance with their ancestors, traveled the astral plane, felt the presence of One God, Two Gods, and Many, spoken in tongues, and followed glowing crosses out of the woods at night?

When you release your need to know the One Truth, you are free to view your religious calling as a work in progress. You need not ever reach a final state. You can look on it as an artistic endeavor — or as a set of artistic works, with multiple unrelated religious projects in progress at once. Your religion becomes a set of dialogues between yourself and Spirit.

There is no call to blindly accept the religion your parents gave you. And there is no call to find the perfect religion, the one better than all the others, and place it forever under glass and defend it unto death. It is not even necessary to retreat to your garage and build the perfect religion from scratch, one which will stand the test of time and be Eternal Truth.

Go out into the meadows of the world, and gather religions like wildflowers.

God’s Cops

Like any laws, the rules of religion tell you how to behave, and specify punishment for lawbreakers.

Sir, we caught you red-handedly [...]]]> When people lose their sense of awe, they turn to organized religion. When they no longer trust themselves, they turn to authority. — Tao Te Ching 72 (Stephen Mitchell’s modern Zen-influenced translation)

God’s Cops

Like any laws, the rules of religion tell you how to behave, and specify punishment for lawbreakers.

Sir, we caught you red-handedly not loving your neighbor as yourself. Uh-oh! You’re headed downtown, buddy. The sentence: eternal damnation. No bail.

But regulating virtue is nonsense. If I tell you to be virtuous — not just act virtuously, but be virtuous — and threaten you with punishment if you fail, and then you act virtuously, have you magically become virtuous? Even Jesus said that adultery committed in the heart is still adultery. The whole point of virtue is that it’s something you choose to be, of your own free will. Otherwise you’re play-acting. And omniscient Gods can tell the difference.

Even worse, to my mind, are rules which specify penances for certain acts. Committed adultery? Put other gods before the Lord? No problem; just meditate, or chant, or — best yet — donate more money to the church! Your good acts will make up for your failings, and you’ll get to keep your badge and get into the City of God.

This is just selling salvation.

Judge Not

Now, don’t get me wrong. If you commit adultery, there will be consequences to those actions. But it’s not the job of the church to mete out that punishment, or sell those indulgences. Didn’t Jesus say judge not, lest ye be judged and found wanting? Why don’t the churches heed this advice, too? (For that matter, why didn’t Jesus…? He certainly cast his judgement on a lot of people. Aha, another Mystery to contemplate!)

But even if the church doesn’t itself mete out punishment, but just threatens God’s punishments, the same problem occurs. It’s simply a fact that virtue is not something you can be scared into; otherwise it’s not virtue. Certainly a threatened punishment can encourage you to act better, and maybe when you start acting right, you’ll realize you like virtue and you’ll be virtuous for its own sake. But more often, threats lead to resentment, fear, and closed-mindedness.

This is a very serious criticism indeed, and holds not just of religion, but of any moral or ethical system that lays out desiderata and consequences. The injunction Do Not Steal, and the threat of some kind of punishment, doesn’t keep you from wanting to steal, regardless of whether the law is laid down by God, Obama, Immanuel Kant, or the local Mafia Don.

What’s the answer here? I can only offer my own opinion; and it’s not something that’s easy to state plainly. Let me ask questions instead.

* Are you believing in your religion just because of the punishments and rewards involved? Suppose you’re Christian, and then, as you’re dying, you find out that Islam was right all along. Whoops! But Allah is merciful, and gives you one last chance to convert to Islam real quick, to escape the Muslim hell. Would you still adhere to Christianity? If not, are you believing for the right reasons? (If you’re not Christian, substitute your own belief system here.)
* If virtue is its own reward, why isn’t sin its own punishment?

Suppose you belong to a religion that says you’re either in or you’re out — like (to pick an example at random on Easter Sunday) Christianity. Suppose you believe that if you don’t accept Jesus as your Personal Savior (TM), you’re going to hell. And you’ve got your badge, [...]]]> Your Friends Are All Crazy

Suppose you belong to a religion that says you’re either in or you’re out — like (to pick an example at random on Easter Sunday) Christianity. Suppose you believe that if you don’t accept Jesus as your Personal Savior (TM), you’re going to hell. And you’ve got your badge, so you’re all set. And then you walk around town, and you see someone wearing a different badge.

This may well bother you. It might be something like seeing someone with a horrible disease — one which you happen to be carrying the antidote to. Or — if this person is proud of their badge — like seeing someone carrying a Nazi flag or something.

I’ve never been in this situation (except as someone not wearing such a badge), so I’m not sure how it feels; and obviously it will bother some people more than others.

But the point is that it can be socially awkward. Being around people who don’t share your fundamental belief system can be stressful. It is difficult to be reminded again and again that your friends don’t share your religion. (Alternatively, maybe it wouldn’t bother you at all — but in that case, how strong is your own personal belief, really?)

When I was growing up Zen in the Bible belt, some people would react with disbelief when they found out I wasn’t Christian. Don’t you go to church? They seemed to think I was literally insane. And you can pity an insane person, but you can’t build a strong personal connection with them.

We’re Not Like Those ‘People’

The tendency, then, is for religions to create in-groups and out-groups — to divide people, rather than unite them. This is a huge problem all over the world, as a simple glance at the headlines will show. People tend to be in families that are all the same religion, to have friends that are all the same religion, and so forth. This is profoundly unhealthy.

The fourth argument against religion is simple and undeniable: religion creates divisions between people, and leads to terrible prejudice, discrimination, anger and violence of all kinds, from family squabbles to full-scale warfare.

But there are two salient, related points here.

It’s not just religions. Humans form in-groups and out-groups at the drop of a hat, for any excuse, based on language, culture, geography, even hair and skin color. This is regrettable, but you can’t blame religion for it. One might hope that religion would help alleviate the problem, not exacerbate it, and in fact…

It’s not all religions. Not all religions are of the strong “you’re in or you’re out” type. Most people who fall under the Hindu umbrella, for example, think it would be ridiculous if the whole world were Hindu. Chinese philosophy admits of the “three paths up the mountain” model, which balances tolerantly Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. Some religions — such as many varieties of modern paganism — encourage and celebrate religious diversity. There are even varieties of Christianity that teach that you can still get to heaven even if you’re not a personal friend of Jesus, though unfortunately those varieties are a marked minority.

And most people today in America are, I’ve found, pretty tolerant. Even though Christianity is officially a “you’re in or you’re out” religion, and Christian doctrine calls for you to go out and proclaim the good news, and even though there are some very loud obnoxious evangelists chewing up the scenery on TV, most people in America treat your religion as a private thing you do in your home. As long as you don’t march through the streets shouting praises to Apollo, you’re cool. Even if you do proclaim your faith loudly, most people just complain about the noise. (Though maybe that just means most Americans aren’t all that fervent about their beliefs.)

Is Tolerance Enough?

No. Tolerance is better than bringing out the torches and pitchforks, but it’s also not ideal. People should be talking about these things, discussing them and comparing them, not keeping them private. This is how we learn: we ask questions, we answer questions, we contrast our opinions and examine each other’s ideas and feelings. If we don’t do this work, we’re just politely ignoring each other’s badges — and probably not paying enough attention to asking ourselves these questions, and exploring our own ideas and feelings. Ignoring the badges doesn’t make them go away.

Only by dialogue and engagement can we break out of this in-group / out-group nonsense. Maybe we’ll get there eventually, and the “live-and-let-live” attitude is a necessary step in that direction. I hope so.

And Happy Zombie Jesus Day.