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| Brad Pitt helped inaugurate the column |
By Morris Dean
Last July, I announced that Thursdays would be devoted to airing out religion and religions. I explained that the column's title came from the etymology of the word Thursday, literally "Thor's Day."
It's probably useful to explain again, for readers new to this column, that in Norse mythology, Thor was a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, the protection of mankind, and also hallowing, healing, and fertility.
Not just for newcomers, but for readers who haven't missed an issue, here's a repeat of Thor's inaugural column:
Some basic religious beliefs seem unobjectionable enough. To believe, for example, that if people pray for you your chances thereby improve for overcoming cancer or for making your house payment wouldn't seem to cause a problem for anyone. Your doctor will almost surely nod and tell you it can't hurt to pray and have prayers said for you. So go ahead. And we won't object either. If it makes you feel better, where's the harm?
Of course, if the belief leads you to ignore your doctor's advice as unnecessary, or if it leads you to stop trying to put together funds for your house payment, you may worsen your situation. Insights like that led to the homily, "God helps those who help themselves."
The key here seems to be not to 100%-believe something for which you don't (and can't) have good evidence. If you do believe it 100%, you box yourself out from other, more reliable options. Believe it just enough to make yourself (and your friends) feel better in spirit, but don't put any more stock in it than that.
Note that you can often make your friends feel better just by pretending to believe something.
I'm taking a religious belief to be a belief for which there is not enough evidence to substantiate that it is true or even probably true. That is, you have to "take it on faith" to take it at all. Otherwise, don't believe it.
What about beliefs for which there is sufficient evidence to substantiate that they aren't true, or probably aren't? Of course, you shouldn't believe such things, it isn't reasonable.
But people do believe such things. The earth is 6,000 years old. God created the species in their present form. The Bible prescribes how we should live today.
It isn't necessarily objectionable for people to believe such things anyway, if they don't adversely affect anyone else. But they do. Children of people who believe such things are disadvantaged, certainly in terms of education and very likely in terms of social and economic opportunity. That parents believe such things and indoctrinate their children in them is tragic and a travesty.
That voters believe such things can, and routinely does, affect others adversely also. They vote for the wrong candidates, they put wrong-headed restrictions on what schools can teach, who can get married, who will be permitted to serve, and so on.
One religious belief that is particularly objectionable is the belief that your religion is the only true one. An article in [a July 12, 2012] newspaper recounted Islamists blowing up some more ancient shrines in Timbuktu. (You can read about it in, for example, The Telegraph.)
Of course, if you don't act on the belief that your religious belief is the only true one (apparently not a possibility for "Islamists"), then maybe it's not so objectionable—again, unless you have children, or vote (to name only two activities adversely affected).
Unfortunately, religious beliefs come in packaged assortments—usually in pre-packaged assortments, assembled by others for your consumption, complete with reinforcers to make them stick. If you backslide, you will receive extra punishment in hell. People who renounce our religion should be stoned to death.
If you're frightened by such beliefs, you're all the more likely to buy into the beliefs that accompany them—if you can't safely leave that belief system and become free to believe things for which there is good evidence.
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Copyright © 2012, 2013 by Morris Dean
| Please comment |
If it (prayer) makes you feel better, where's the harm? While there may not be any harm in prayer itself, prayer is connected to religion, and therein lies the harm. Religion exists to give people an "out" when bad things happen in the real world, which subliminally inspires them to take the real world less seriously than they should - because they subconsciously think there is a next world where things will be made right. Why drive safely? If you accidentally kill yourself or someone else, the next world will be better anyway. Why worry about the environment? All will be well in the next world. Why worry about saving the Earth, for that matter, because the next world will be infinitely superior. People may not fully buy into this, but prayer and religion push them to subconsciously believe it at a level, and they live accordingly. Don't take real life so seriously, it is the next life that really matters, right?
ReplyDeleteMotomynd, thanks. Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris (and I) share your concerns. I think last July I was "making allowances" for my praying friends—allowances that shouldn't be made.
DeleteYour comment has given me an idea for next week's column: a survey of readers who pray or "believe in prayer," asking them to answer as honestly as they possibly can whether, for one example, they "take the real world less seriously because they think there is a next world where things will be made right." Obviously, I'll have to craft the questions very carefully, but as that example indicates, their starting point would be your comment. I'd use Google+ Circles and Facebook to appeal to the target audience to take the survey.
Morris, will your survey take into account the difference between those who pray to a traditional god of an official or "organized" religion versus those who might believe in some sort of interconnected cosmos (power of nature, shared energy, etc) with an entirely different concept of prayer?
ReplyDeleteOver the years I have met many "non-traditional believers" who think that if you "do good" it will be returned - in this realm, not some far off never never land - and that what you do to affect what happens in this realm is infinitely more important than what may, or may not, happen in the next. And I have met many "traditional believers" who think what you do now doesn't matter all that much so long as you believe in a hereafter anchored around their version of a god. The traditionalists definitely think of "prayer" as their form of communication with their deity. In many cases, perhaps surprisingly, so do the non-traditionalists, even though their perspective on prayer, and its purpose and impact, are far different.
Motomynd, it would appear that the survey SHOULD so distinguish—perhaps simply by a question asking the survey-taker to "qualify" what type of pray-er they are....
DeleteSuch a question might even be instructive for the traditionalists.
If any questions formulate themselves to you, please forward them [the formulations] to me. Thanks!
Motomynd, I've put together the "survey," which I think is looking pretty good for publication tomorrow. I hope that it gets some revealing responses....
DeleteAnd thank you for reviewing an early draft and making some suggestions for improvement.