by request
i try not to write about books that i haven't actually read. does an interview on BookTV count?
the basic premise of almost all religions is faith in the face of insufficient reason. my friends have heard me say this numerous times, and i feel this is an indisputable fact. you may, all my philosopher friends out there, choose to attack the assumption. sam harris takes my distaste for religion in general to the next step, (convincingly, to me,) arguing that the lip service respect we pay to religion is actually dangerous to society. by allowed and accepting these inherently unsubstantiated beliefs, we also condone the behavior they encourage. discussing religion is anathema, and arguing against someone else's believes even more so. (pity the people who try to save my soul don't follow this social convention.) sam harris writes that this is detrimental to society: we should challenge people's beliefs; we should not bend or change laws based on religious beliefs.
a dear friend argues that the belief itself is not to blame, but the egoism that allows people to belief that they alone hold the monopoly on Truth. she cites the arrogance of some academics who look down on those without a degree, or even those with a degree in a different field. the bad behavior comes not from blind faith, but from a sense of superiority. as soon as we think we are better than other people, we stop treating them with respect. i might argue that believing you are better than someone else is inherently illogical. by what factors are you better? what scale are we using here? and how many factors do you have to "win" by to determine "betterness" overall? do some factors have more weight than others? and if someone else is more kind, and you are more just (whatever that means), who wins? so we're back to the same problem of insufficient reason and the behaviors that follow.
another dear friend has also countered that christianity is not based on insufficient reason. i attack belief in the bible using the classic arguments. even if it was, at one point, the Word of God, certainly the time between Reception of the Word and writing it down, the many councils which decided the texts to be included in the bible, the several translations, and the several interpretations have corrupted the word. secondly, people believe the bible is the word of god because the book itself says so. just as you can't define a word by the word itself, you can't say "i'm right because i say so." my friend argued that authenticity of the bible is protected by the strength of jewish oral tradition, which we can trust has honestly passed down the exact text through the generations before transcription. the council which followed was composed of honest people who tried to include those books that best represented what had happened. i'm not doing his argument justice. i hope, for the sake of all other readers (should anyone care enough to ask) that he will respond and explain it better.
i suppose there are other conversations i could cite (remember our emails? :o)), but i will leave it here for now. skeletons of in depth discussions, during which we tried to avoid the passion that fuels all strong beliefs.
This I Believe is an NPR series in which people discuss positive beliefs that inform the way the individual lives, and brings them home and happiness. for those of you too lazy to read the essay at the link, penn states, "Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate." I believe in challenging my ideas constantly. i believe in forcing myself to continually reevaluate the way i see the world. by refusing to believe in something simply because i've been told, i must look to my experiences of reality and of other people to understand the world. i do believe that if you need a god to tell you to love your neighbor, you have not taken the time to know your neighbor and come to love him/her in the natural way. i suppose i've strayed from the point. i guess this paragraph was supposed to say that you don't need religion to be a good person. reason and compassion together can be a strong moral compass too?
these are very incomplete ideas. i suppose if this were a school assignment, i'd take the time to be clearer. but i am not trying to create a well-structured essay on my world view. these are my thoughts. another dear friend requested i write them down here to see how you will respond.