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Of Religion IV (Final)
Posted on: Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Firstly, what am I? It's difficult to pigeohole me because even I myself am not thoroughly sure. I have presented my way of thinking about the "spiritual." Let me summarize: (1) I entirely reject the possibility that any religion in existence previously or today is "true" because the probability of its being so is so negligible as to be insignificant. (2) I do not hold it possible to verify the existence of a generic supernatural entity. (3) I can see no evidence that, IF the said supernatural entity does indeed exist, it has initiated or maintained any discernible contact with or impact on the human kind. So, principally I am a secular humanist, which means that religion, particularly the spiritual part of religion, does not play an active part in my ordinary life. I am also nominally Jewish because I feel I owe a duty to my nation to continue almost six millennia of tradition. Besides, Judaism has served as a mortar that binds the bricks together, ie. in times of peace our beliefs helped us stay unique and united; in times of war and turbulence it helped us remain true to ourselves and survive. Do I do the mitzvot? No, not consciously. Those which I observe I do because they are part of my personality. I guess there are a few which I keep for tradition's sake, such as not cutting my peyot with a razor, but it is just the motions.
Does that make me a bad person? I don't think so. I am not debauched, dishonest, callous, licentious, gluttonous, hateful, avaricious and all those other things commonly associated with "heathen."
If anything, I think I tend to be a lot more caring, mild, sensitive, positive and "upstanding" than the vast majority of deeply religious people I've met directly or (of) whom I know indirectly. I am a strong "believer" (for want of a better word) in NATURAL LAW. That is to say, I hold we are all naturally/biologically born with a sense of "right" and "wrong", which is entirely independent of any religious system. For that reason, observations can be made that every known culture in the world, no matter how isolated from one another, autonomously set the limits of behavior at a certain (common-to-all) point. I will not belabor this matter and will only state that all cultures censured eg. murder or theft. Even the cultures which practised human sacrifices or cannibalism sought to rationalize it. Now, if you seek to rationalize or justify an act, that means you DO recognize that it is wrong or, at least, that it commands justification or excuse. Consequently, there has been no group specimen of people among which killing another was something done as naturally and intrinsically as eating or drinking. Just to make it clear, natural law is NOT any kind of religion to me in the loosest of sense; it is merely an observation.
Religiously, I can only be described as agnostic. That's AGNOSTIC; not gnostic, not atheist, not heathen, not rebellious, etc. Many have misconceptions about what agnosticism means and that includes even those styling themselves as agnostics. Agnosticism is uncertainty, unknowability and unprovability of the existence of a supernatural (divine) entity, and subsequently the state of imperturbability about whether such an entity really does exist. Nothing more and nothing less. Agnosticism does NOT mean quibbling about the veracity of Xian, Muslim or some other defined theology. As I have shown: fact is, we cannot be sure if an intelligent, supernatural entity or force exists, let alone whether that entity exercises power over us and nature as a whole. So the best way to encapsulate my attitude toward religion and "god" is that neither concerns me in the slightest. I live my life according to my instincts and according to the adage: "treat others as you would want to be treated." No, I do not apply that proverb consciously to my actions; it comes naturally. I also have an extremely acute sense for JUSTICE and FAIRNESS. Any mistreatment of a human being has a profound effect of revulsion on me. Forgiveness does feature prominently in my thinking but exacting justice overrides it.
And that sense for justice is precisely what gets me so fired up about religion. On the one hand, as some would say, if I think religions are wack, then why expend such energy countering them? No, it is not because I'm defiant against "god"/"God"/"G-d"/etc. but because of that aspect of religion which I emphasized in the second part of this series when I referred to religions which are "actively advertized by the holder thereof." I do not have any issue with any belief. I have a problem with cases where those beliefs exit the private sphere of the individual or group of consenting adults because that is the point at which they (the believer) fields their dogma in the marketplace of ideas. And in any marketplace critical evaluation is part of the game. So, if you want to air your beliefs, then I will tackle, debunk and savage them. If you wish to legislate to make me behave in accordance with those beliefs, I will fight you like a son of a bitch and will seek to legislate against such ideas. You see, I WANT to be able shop on Sunday. I WANT to be able to screw whomever I please. I WANT the woman who's carrying the child to be able to decide whether she wants to have it. I WANT to be able to have a dick up my ass if I choose to have one there. I WANT to be able to determine my kid's hair color. I WANT to be able to watch consenting adults have a gangbang. I want to be able to JOIN in the gangbang. I WANT to be able to listen to Eminem. ... I don't do most of those things. In fact, I don't do any of them--except shop Sundays and listen to Eminem--nor do I have much of a desire to. But I want to have the OPTION of doing them. I want other people to have that option. I do NOT want our lives to be even theoretically limited on the basis that a book says they should be and because some people believe that book to contain instructions from "almighty 'god.'" If you wish to proscribe things on workers' rights, health and safety, public order or similar grounds, then, by all means, we can have a debate. Both (or all) sides can present their logical, scientific, scholarly perspectives and a decision can be made using logic, science, reason and other methods while ensuring that principles of democracy and civil liberties are safeguarded. But no: "we have to ban x because 'god' is against x" is simply not good enough. Not only is it not good enough; it's total bullshit. After all, you owe your religious beliefs to a fluke or two. If Constantine hadn't bought it, Xianity would've remained an insignificant cult. Today it would probably be of the same fortitude and importance as Zoroastrianism (and the humankind would be at the 26th century stage of development but never mind that). And Islam might never have happened. If you'd been born elsewhere, you'd be able to have four wives. Or you'd be able to view all the legs in mini-skirts your eyes could register. Or you'd be living in servitude of whichever sort. And you'd be just as convinced your religion and your view of life and all that matter are the right one.
Oh, I HAVE to do some Xian-bashing.
Xianity--the kind prevalent in the US--tends to be about sentimentalism, as perfectly illustrated by this site (the title says enough): Jesus Christ Suffered And Died Then Rose From The Dead So You Can Go To Heaven. If you manage to look past their trying to suck up to Jews, fabricate some sort of affinity with us, and the very ironic warning "Beware of Cults!"(!!!), you see what it boils down to: grandiose claims which do not stand historical, anthropological, sociological, LOGICAL or any other kind of scrutiny. These people are the ones waging the "war of civilizations" at this minute and you can find them on both sides. They've turned countries into police states, people's lives into misery, human concord and moves toward understanding into suspicion and odium. Now, some of you will say I'm much harder on Xianity than on other religions, notably Islam. And that is, to a degree, true. The main reason, however, is not any personal experience I've had or grudge but good old-fashioned science and logic--this time history. You see, Islam can be "excused": it is younger and going thru the same stages as Xianity did. We all know what Europe and the "Xian lands" were like only a century ago. We know of the Inquisition, witch hunts, stakes, endless ideological and nationalistic wars (of course, religion was used merely as a tool to achieve other, one might say "superior", interests), manipulation of people, intimidation of dissenters and so on and so forth. But evolution did its thing and most such areas and people have sorted themselves out by today. Islam is probably at the same point where Europe was at the time of the Reformation, maybe even past it. The most infuriating recent development has been the idiotic fundamentalist Xian Bush administration incensing Muslims. They have done nothing but radicalize millions of people who, in a few decades or maybe a century or so, would have achieved the kind of healthy secularization as erstwhile Christendom did in the second half of the last century. Secularization which does not forbid believing in what makes you happy but which DOES mandate separation of religious belief and functioning of the state. And now morons Bush and neo-conservatives have managed to thrust the Muslim world back into the 19th century. Perhaps that's a rather bleak way to look at things but I don't believe I am too far off the mark.
The answer? One word: tolerance. As platitudinous as it may sound, we have to tolerate each other but not just to the point of acceptance. We have to go further and acknowledge others' attitude toward us, toward beliefs whose veracity cannot be proven using conventional, scientific means. Xians and Muslims and others have to understand that their beliefs are based on faith, not evidence provable by employing said scientific means. They have to accept that the way to move forward is for them to confine these their beliefs to the domain where they belong: private life and/or group of PRIVATE consenting adults (just so nobody tries to interpret that as giving green-light to religionist governments). It's amazing what we can achieve when we use reason, logic and objectivity. Somehow, however, I will not be holding my breath on this one.
Posted on: Tuesday, December 28, 2004
ב''ה
Firstly, what am I? It's difficult to pigeohole me because even I myself am not thoroughly sure. I have presented my way of thinking about the "spiritual." Let me summarize: (1) I entirely reject the possibility that any religion in existence previously or today is "true" because the probability of its being so is so negligible as to be insignificant. (2) I do not hold it possible to verify the existence of a generic supernatural entity. (3) I can see no evidence that, IF the said supernatural entity does indeed exist, it has initiated or maintained any discernible contact with or impact on the human kind. So, principally I am a secular humanist, which means that religion, particularly the spiritual part of religion, does not play an active part in my ordinary life. I am also nominally Jewish because I feel I owe a duty to my nation to continue almost six millennia of tradition. Besides, Judaism has served as a mortar that binds the bricks together, ie. in times of peace our beliefs helped us stay unique and united; in times of war and turbulence it helped us remain true to ourselves and survive. Do I do the mitzvot? No, not consciously. Those which I observe I do because they are part of my personality. I guess there are a few which I keep for tradition's sake, such as not cutting my peyot with a razor, but it is just the motions.
Does that make me a bad person? I don't think so. I am not debauched, dishonest, callous, licentious, gluttonous, hateful, avaricious and all those other things commonly associated with "heathen."
If anything, I think I tend to be a lot more caring, mild, sensitive, positive and "upstanding" than the vast majority of deeply religious people I've met directly or (of) whom I know indirectly. I am a strong "believer" (for want of a better word) in NATURAL LAW. That is to say, I hold we are all naturally/biologically born with a sense of "right" and "wrong", which is entirely independent of any religious system. For that reason, observations can be made that every known culture in the world, no matter how isolated from one another, autonomously set the limits of behavior at a certain (common-to-all) point. I will not belabor this matter and will only state that all cultures censured eg. murder or theft. Even the cultures which practised human sacrifices or cannibalism sought to rationalize it. Now, if you seek to rationalize or justify an act, that means you DO recognize that it is wrong or, at least, that it commands justification or excuse. Consequently, there has been no group specimen of people among which killing another was something done as naturally and intrinsically as eating or drinking. Just to make it clear, natural law is NOT any kind of religion to me in the loosest of sense; it is merely an observation.
Religiously, I can only be described as agnostic. That's AGNOSTIC; not gnostic, not atheist, not heathen, not rebellious, etc. Many have misconceptions about what agnosticism means and that includes even those styling themselves as agnostics. Agnosticism is uncertainty, unknowability and unprovability of the existence of a supernatural (divine) entity, and subsequently the state of imperturbability about whether such an entity really does exist. Nothing more and nothing less. Agnosticism does NOT mean quibbling about the veracity of Xian, Muslim or some other defined theology. As I have shown: fact is, we cannot be sure if an intelligent, supernatural entity or force exists, let alone whether that entity exercises power over us and nature as a whole. So the best way to encapsulate my attitude toward religion and "god" is that neither concerns me in the slightest. I live my life according to my instincts and according to the adage: "treat others as you would want to be treated." No, I do not apply that proverb consciously to my actions; it comes naturally. I also have an extremely acute sense for JUSTICE and FAIRNESS. Any mistreatment of a human being has a profound effect of revulsion on me. Forgiveness does feature prominently in my thinking but exacting justice overrides it.
And that sense for justice is precisely what gets me so fired up about religion. On the one hand, as some would say, if I think religions are wack, then why expend such energy countering them? No, it is not because I'm defiant against "god"/"God"/"G-d"/etc. but because of that aspect of religion which I emphasized in the second part of this series when I referred to religions which are "actively advertized by the holder thereof." I do not have any issue with any belief. I have a problem with cases where those beliefs exit the private sphere of the individual or group of consenting adults because that is the point at which they (the believer) fields their dogma in the marketplace of ideas. And in any marketplace critical evaluation is part of the game. So, if you want to air your beliefs, then I will tackle, debunk and savage them. If you wish to legislate to make me behave in accordance with those beliefs, I will fight you like a son of a bitch and will seek to legislate against such ideas. You see, I WANT to be able shop on Sunday. I WANT to be able to screw whomever I please. I WANT the woman who's carrying the child to be able to decide whether she wants to have it. I WANT to be able to have a dick up my ass if I choose to have one there. I WANT to be able to determine my kid's hair color. I WANT to be able to watch consenting adults have a gangbang. I want to be able to JOIN in the gangbang. I WANT to be able to listen to Eminem. ... I don't do most of those things. In fact, I don't do any of them--except shop Sundays and listen to Eminem--nor do I have much of a desire to. But I want to have the OPTION of doing them. I want other people to have that option. I do NOT want our lives to be even theoretically limited on the basis that a book says they should be and because some people believe that book to contain instructions from "almighty 'god.'" If you wish to proscribe things on workers' rights, health and safety, public order or similar grounds, then, by all means, we can have a debate. Both (or all) sides can present their logical, scientific, scholarly perspectives and a decision can be made using logic, science, reason and other methods while ensuring that principles of democracy and civil liberties are safeguarded. But no: "we have to ban x because 'god' is against x" is simply not good enough. Not only is it not good enough; it's total bullshit. After all, you owe your religious beliefs to a fluke or two. If Constantine hadn't bought it, Xianity would've remained an insignificant cult. Today it would probably be of the same fortitude and importance as Zoroastrianism (and the humankind would be at the 26th century stage of development but never mind that). And Islam might never have happened. If you'd been born elsewhere, you'd be able to have four wives. Or you'd be able to view all the legs in mini-skirts your eyes could register. Or you'd be living in servitude of whichever sort. And you'd be just as convinced your religion and your view of life and all that matter are the right one.
Oh, I HAVE to do some Xian-bashing.
Xianity--the kind prevalent in the US--tends to be about sentimentalism, as perfectly illustrated by this site (the title says enough): Jesus Christ Suffered And Died Then Rose From The Dead So You Can Go To Heaven. If you manage to look past their trying to suck up to Jews, fabricate some sort of affinity with us, and the very ironic warning "Beware of Cults!"(!!!), you see what it boils down to: grandiose claims which do not stand historical, anthropological, sociological, LOGICAL or any other kind of scrutiny. These people are the ones waging the "war of civilizations" at this minute and you can find them on both sides. They've turned countries into police states, people's lives into misery, human concord and moves toward understanding into suspicion and odium. Now, some of you will say I'm much harder on Xianity than on other religions, notably Islam. And that is, to a degree, true. The main reason, however, is not any personal experience I've had or grudge but good old-fashioned science and logic--this time history. You see, Islam can be "excused": it is younger and going thru the same stages as Xianity did. We all know what Europe and the "Xian lands" were like only a century ago. We know of the Inquisition, witch hunts, stakes, endless ideological and nationalistic wars (of course, religion was used merely as a tool to achieve other, one might say "superior", interests), manipulation of people, intimidation of dissenters and so on and so forth. But evolution did its thing and most such areas and people have sorted themselves out by today. Islam is probably at the same point where Europe was at the time of the Reformation, maybe even past it. The most infuriating recent development has been the idiotic fundamentalist Xian Bush administration incensing Muslims. They have done nothing but radicalize millions of people who, in a few decades or maybe a century or so, would have achieved the kind of healthy secularization as erstwhile Christendom did in the second half of the last century. Secularization which does not forbid believing in what makes you happy but which DOES mandate separation of religious belief and functioning of the state. And now morons Bush and neo-conservatives have managed to thrust the Muslim world back into the 19th century. Perhaps that's a rather bleak way to look at things but I don't believe I am too far off the mark.
The answer? One word: tolerance. As platitudinous as it may sound, we have to tolerate each other but not just to the point of acceptance. We have to go further and acknowledge others' attitude toward us, toward beliefs whose veracity cannot be proven using conventional, scientific means. Xians and Muslims and others have to understand that their beliefs are based on faith, not evidence provable by employing said scientific means. They have to accept that the way to move forward is for them to confine these their beliefs to the domain where they belong: private life and/or group of PRIVATE consenting adults (just so nobody tries to interpret that as giving green-light to religionist governments). It's amazing what we can achieve when we use reason, logic and objectivity. Somehow, however, I will not be holding my breath on this one.
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