Is religion like a penis?

[gwendally]

There's a picture going around on (my extremely leftist) Facebook flist that says, "Religion is like a penis.  It's fine to have one.  It's fine to be proud of it.  But please don't whip it out in public and start waving it around.  And PLEASE don't try to shove it down my children's throats."

Having been raised as the daughter of a Jew and a

Comments

[gwendally]

"since I don't actually KNOW which answer is true, I chose the one that gives me the most comfort, the most guidance, the most tools for stubbing out answers to the big stumping questions that could paralyze me if I couldn't put a pin in them for the time being."

The thing that stumped me was "what happens to my soul after I die." I found that I was sort of paralyzed by needing an answer. Perhaps another person will get stuck on another element, like "why do bad things happen to good people." I never had much trouble with that one, personally. Shit happens. Why NOT to me? But the the place I felt I needed an answer is what happens after I die. Are we just meat here to gobble up some nitrogen and oxygen and then return to compost? Is there something that is divine and sacred in human life?

An atheist might say absolutely not and believe that. That's their belief and it's absolutely as valid as any other belief. But why choose that particular belief? My suggestion is that you can choose to believe ANY of the equally unknowable choices. Pick the one that brings you the most comfort, that helps you to construct a code of conduct that you think is most beneficial to you in living your life.

I spend a lot of my time trying to make the world a better place. If I thought we were all just meat, that there was nothing sacred in human life, that my existence is finite... would I waste it in meetings trying to design a safer future for 30 years from now when I might very well be dead? Honestly, no. I struggle with depression as it is. If I thought that all that was in store for me was a dirt nap I'd probably behave considerably differently. (Atheists hate this answer, it goes against a tenet of their belief. But, nevertheless, it happens to be true for me.)

The answer I chose for myself is that I am sacred, a tendril of the Great Spaghetti Monster that is God, not separate, but an instantiation of God. When I die I will be reabsorbed into the whole, maybe pop back out again somewhere else again, maybe just be part of the great blob of goodwill that sparks life on Earth.

Personally, my own belief suspects that this Great God Entity - of which I am a part - is intertwined with the Planet Earth. I had a nightmare once that people who left on spaceships to colonize new worlds got trapped as ghosts when they died: they couldn't get back to God, couldn't rejoin, couldn't be reborn... a tragedy that no one saw coming. I didn't like that thought. It occurred to me that I might have to choose a better answer if I ever wanted to colonize another planet.

But in the absence of millennial ships, this will do for now. It's an answer I can live with. It makes me feel connected when I'm lonely, it makes me feel comforted that warmth and goodness waits for me when I die, that I will still be with and among and part of my loved ones. It also works as a filter to agreeably accept other people's teachings. Get reborn until you join nirvana? Yep. Jesus was a divine being? Yep. (I just don't mention that I think we're ALL divine beings.) There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his messenger? Seems about right to me. The blob carried a giant tortoise on its back to form the world? Sure, right on. I wasn't there, could be. After all, any answer that means I was the only person on earth to ever glimpse the divine would smack of hubris to me and automatically be suspect.

I belong to an organized religion and worship in a church on Sundays with a community of people. But my church is somewhat unique in that it really doesn't have any doctrine. Pick your own, as long as you give it some thought, where "thought" is far more important than "faith". (In a shocking turn of events, the church is highly represented by people with higher degrees.) We just get together for an hour on Sundays and think about being good people for a while. Oh, and we'll do an occasional public service project, but, overall, it's just a bunch of people who feel they've got a divine side and want to nurture it.

Works for me.

[aloha_moira]

Hm. Believing that your soul will live on in some way after you're gone is considerably different than thinking there's a divine plan for your life (at least, in the way I'm understanding it), which I guess was what I was really responding to (the quote you posted). As far as what happens after we die, I dunno, I really have no idea. I can't begin to pretend to understand how consciousness arises from our physical selves. I struggle with depression too, but personally, I don't find the idea that we get our 0-100 years and that's it to be especially discouraging or frightening - more motivation to make the most of the time I have, eh? And beyond that I guess I am motivated to make the world a better place for my kids and fellow humans. But I have no way of knowing, so who am I to say your hunch is wrong and mine is right?

In general I'm down with the UU way of doing things - will probably check out the UU church in Manchester at some point. I absolutely don't think that being an atheist means you have to deny that there is something special and awesome about the earth and humanity and our universe, and want to connect to it more fully. It's a really freakin cool place and when I think about it I feel very lucky to have the chance to experience it.

With the way the NASA budget is going I don't think you'll have to worry about interstellar ghosts anytime soon. ;)

I really do recommend the "10 Atheist Myths" article, though - quick read and will spare you from unintentionally irritating more atheists by referring to atheism as a religion.

[gwendally]

I did give the "10 Atheist Myth" thing a read, and I do not agree that atheism is not a religion.

Here's the thing: God may not exist. I totally understand that. Or God may exist in a form that isn't comprehensible to us, and the glimpses of God that we imagine from time to time are just one tiny corner of the elephant we blind men are touching. But both are equally possible. So when you come to a conclusion on this issue at all, you are coming to a conclusion that satisfies YOUR criteria. You are CHOOSING what you will believe. Yes, you're doing it with more introspective thought than most people imprinted with religion as a child would give, but no less introspective thought that the average UU gives. The claim that "if God were real he would have proved himself already" is beyond stupid. Seriously, go look at your baby's smile. Is your baby a sack of meat or is there a spark of a soul in there? It is ENTIRELY possible that God has proven itself over and over again and Atheists choose to interpret it as not existing. That's what they believe.

Whatever works for you is fine. But any answer that involves settling
the nature of God is a religious belief.

The article misunderstood the aphorism "there are no Atheists in Foxholes." Get back to why I choose to believe: it's because it's a useful trick for dealing with things. Comforting. Self-delusional? Perhaps, but what if there actually IS a God and you denied yourself comfort out of hubris that YOU PERSONALLY had the best brain around and knew more than anyone else? It's not because they chicken out. It's because they choose an answer they like better. It's sane behavior. Self-delusion is a perfectly valid way to outfit yourself for difficult tasks. (You constantly hear me envy the ignorant. If I could have some of their peace and obliviousness why wouldn't I pick it? Who says that being able to see clearly is BETTER?") And in this case, it isn't even DELUSION to say that it IS possible God exists. It's not KNOWABLE. It's not PROVABLE. So why choose an answer that brings you misery? This is not the solution of a reasonable person.

It is, of course, entirely possible that you aren't miserable in the foxhole, that atheism is still working fine and dandy for you. But surely, for some people, it wouldn't. Many systems fail under stress tests. Why not systems of religious belief? And the contrary could happen. I could be in a foxhole and say, "fuck it, I'm going to die and be dead and there's not glorious welcome waiting for me so I'm going to do everything I can to make sure the OTHER guy takes that dirt nap, not me." In other words, MY religious structure might change under pressure. WHICH IS FINE. Whatever works for you!

I already told you that I personally needed God to help give my life meaning. You don't. That's fine. But if I did not have God I personally would have a bleak life with less meaning in it. So, ergo, there you are. That's partly why I'm not an atheist. I totally understand that you might not feel that way, and so you CAN be an atheist. But I don't see how you cannot say that it's a myth that "atheists have bleak and meaningless lives". Some must. And those would be the ones that stop being atheists, I'd hope.

What I want from atheists is respect for my right to my own beliefs and I'll respect theirs. They are both equally valid, which is something I do not see Atheists according to me (something they have in common with evangelical Christians.)

[aloha_moira]

"I don't see how you cannot say that it's a myth that "atheists have bleak and meaningless lives"

I hope you're just misunderstanding the logic here - "all women have gray hair" must be true because some women have gray hair? Otherwise, wow. How ridiculously arrogant. It's 100% possible to find meaning in life (your family, friends, work, nature) without tying it into a magical man in the sky or spirit in the air, thanks very much. Plenty of atheists do. That is why it's a myth. Do *some* atheists have bleak and meaningless lives? Sure. Some religious people do too. Would your life be bleak and meaningless without your religion? Apparently. But that doesn't mean that all atheists are miserable and joyless.

You seem to have a similar misunderstanding the foxhole metaphor - the point is not that people can't change their religious/spiritual beliefs under pressure, because clearly some do. But "there are NO atheists in foxholes" very much implies that *everyone* under pressure finds religion to be a necessary coping tool, when this is not the case.

But back to my original point - I guess I see a technical difference between a belief system and a religion. Certainly there are some atheists who absolutely believe that there cannot possibly be a god, with religious fervor, and they tend to make the rest of us look bad. But most of us think 'eh, there's no way to know some of these things one way or the other' and just leave it at that. If pressed, I guess I'd say no, I don't think that anything happens to us after we die, we just go back to whatever nothingness there was before we were born, but - I don't feel strongly enough or certain enough about it to classify it as a religious belief. I dunno, maybe I'm using atheism/agnosticism too interchangeably, but IME most people who describe themselves as atheists are really agnostics who just lean to "but most likely not".

There are an infinite number of possibilities - hell, for all I know, the young earth creationists are right and Satan really did bury those dinosaur bones and manipulate the decay rate of C-14 just to fuck with us - I just say "we can't know" and leave it at that. YMMV, of course, but please don't tell me that my life is hollow and meaningless because of it.

[gwendally]

"It's a myth that women have grey hair". No, it's not. Some women DO have grey hair. "Myth" is not the right word.

[gwendally]

I've sort of lost this thread (imagine that, with only 150 comments!) but just to clarify, I do not assert that atheists have hollow and meaningless lives.

I assert that SOME atheists have hollow and meaningless lives, based on the knowledge that I, personally, would respond to deciding on atheism with that result.

Clearly there must be SOME people who chose atheism who are needlessly hollow and meaningless because of it.

Hopefully, those are atheists who'll choose a better belief system for themselves.

I tend to use the term "religion" to refer to any time you believe something to be true without foundation or evidence. "A vegan lifestyle is healthier for you." I can easily spot religious beliefs when they are different than my beliefs. That's always a sure-fire method, in fact: you believe life starts at conception? Voila, it's a religious belief, not a fact, because I believe differently and NEITHER of us can know factually the correct answer. So, you follow your religion, I'll follow mine and we'll be all set. We just get into trouble when people don't understand they are actually behaving religiously.

[aloha_moira]

So "I don't think leprechauns exist" is also a religious belief?

I still think your logic is off on the myth thing ("It's not a myth that atheists have hollow lives, they do!" really does imply "all") but whatever.

[gwendally]

So "I don't think leprechauns exist" is also a religious belief?

LOL, well, look at the obverse. "I think leprechauns exist" is pretty CLEARLY a religious belief. So, yes, if I think leprechauns exist and you don't, then, yes, I'd say that not believing in leprechauns is part of your own set of religious beliefs. After all, can you PROVE they don't exist? Never existed? There is some evidence that they did in the oral heritage, and stranger things have happened (narwhales, for instance, and saber-toothed tigers.) I doubt you'll prove that negative.

But you can go ahead and believe that leprechauns are a myth. I won't mind. :-)

[aloha_moira]

Also... "I can easily spot religious beliefs when they are different than my beliefs."

Wait, what? So anything people disagree on is automatically religious? (??) I mean, the claim that a vegan diet is healthier than a diet containing animal products (or that global warming is not occurring, or....) is 100% testable. Continuing to believe it's true *despite evidence to the contrary* would qualify it as a religious belief, I suppose, but that's a bad example to use. The conception example I'm with you on. :)

[gwendally]

If I have an untestable belief and you have an untestable belief and they DIFFER that's a pretty good indicator that the belief is of a religious nature, subject to faith and revealed knowledge, not reason and evidence. You may give me REASONS why you have your belief, but fundamentally an untestable belief is not going to be swayed by reason.

There is no way to prove that a diet without fish is healthier than a diet with fish in it. I do not happen to believe that being vegan is the correct way to eat. If you do believe that then it's a pretty good indicator that being vegan is a religious belief.

It's a lot harder to notice your OWN religious beliefs. They just sit unexamined in you. By their nature, they stand already pegged as "true". You do not believe God exists. That doesn't make it true, it makes it your belief. You can no more prove the non-existence of God than I can prove God's existence. Equally plausible.

We as humans tend to prefer to hang around with people who don't challenge our beliefs. Life is more comfortable that way. :-)

[aloha_moira]

I'm not vegan either, but "eating fish is unhealthy for you" is not an untestable assertion. That would be like saying "Believing that drug X lowers cholesterol is a religious belief." It is not. You take your health metrics from big groups of people who eat or don't eat fish (or take plavix or don't take plavix) and see if they're statistically different, and in which direction.

Or do you feel that the scientific method is a belief system as well (in which case NOTHING is testable)? I'm seriously bewildered here.

[aloha_moira]

Of course, some religious claims are testable too:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1072638.ece

;)

[gwendally]

One reason to choose not to believe in the supernatural is that it makes life awfully tricky in practice. How would you ever walk across the room if you didn't have faith that the floor wouldn't turn into viscous mush and swallow you up? How do you lock the doors at night if poltergeist can just get in?

We choose our believes all the time, and for much the same reason as I'm telling you why I chose my beliefs: because I find them handy. They do a pretty good job of making life tolerable. Meet some needs that I had. Stuff like that.

Science is a pretty great set of beliefs. It keeps working and working and working, and a great deal of it is provable. But be careful not to put TOO much faith in science. Personally, I do not believe intercessionary prayer is helpful. But, what if the point is that God heard and said "No"? Too many people on earth, sorry, moratorium on all faith healing this week. You CANNOT prove a negative. You can try, but in the end that final step has to come from faith.

[gwendally]

Having beliefs does not mean they are "religious" in nature. "religious" beliefs are the ones that are not testably true or false. The final answer, after all reasoning has been used, has to be to pick your answer. THAT'S when it becomes religious.

Quite a lot of us are of the same religion and, as I've said, it's generally not even noticeable when we all peg the same thing as true.

For example: I believe the sun will come up tomorrow. Hardly anyone believes there will be an alien attack that destroys the sun this afternoon at 7 PM. If they DID believe that we'd be pretty clear that they were displaying religious beliefs. But if we believed it won't happen? Believing in a future just because our experience always had one every time? Certainly SOME suns go supernova. Not ours ever, but it COULD happen. It would make today suck if we thought that, though, so we don't choose to hold that as a possibility.

The belief in tomorrow's sunrise is a pretty harmless belief. The only way it could do harm is if you decided that the people who believed in doom at 7 PM today were all dangerous and needed to be locked up. Then you are acting on your OWN religious beliefs, grasping them, letting them rule you.

[gwendally]

Wait, sorry, did you say that you can determine what is healthy by testing?

You can determine if drug X lowers cholesterol, I agree. But what if a lowered cholesterol level is associated with greater risk of suicide? Or that a lower cholesterol only reduces the severity of SECOND heart attacks, does not affect the intensity of the massive first one that kills you dead on the first go-around?

What I'm saying is that you can prove small pieces, but you made that LEAP to saying it made you healthier.

Can you prove that NOT eating fish is healthier for you?

[aloha_moira]

Well, technically speaking, you can never prove anything - science deals with statistical probabilities and generalities, not binaries (This drug has a 0.01% risk of causing heart failure, maybe you are the 1 in 10,000, that does not mean the drug is not generally safe, and also doesn't mean it sucks any less to be the 1 in 10,000... blah blah ad nauseam). Maybe this is the nut of our disagreement.

But assuming you can define "healthy" (maybe you don't think this is possible), and assemble a large enough group of subjects, and use the appropriate controls, and analyze the appropriate variables, etc. etc., then you can say with a 95% or 99% (or whatever you want the cutoff to be) degree of confidence that "doing/not doing X is healthy". And yes, a sound study of X drug would include an analysis of adverse events like suicide or heart attack.

We're a ways away from being able to say "doing/not doing X is the best idea for you, personally", although certainly people are working on ways to make the confidence higher - genetic tests to show whether you're more likely to experience an adverse event or a stronger benefit, for example. Maybe someday we will have enough understanding of human biology and enough computational power to say "X drug will improve your health" with near-certainty. 1:1 trillion likelihood, or something. It would take a really sophisticated model and a lot of data, but I don't think it's impossible.

I'll be the first to admit that science is not perfect (you know how much I hated grad school, right?), but if you operate under the assumption that there is an objective reality (and clearly not everyone does), it's a pretty decent way to make sense of that reality. Whatever god you want to fill the gaps with is fine by me.