The Comment Factory

Religion is the most powerful social phenomenon humans have yet constructed. When naturalists and supernaturalists square off in debate, naturalists often fail to see religion as something more than an outdated sack of viral ideas begging to be refuted by logic and reason. This failure prolongs the debate and the naturalists often lose footing, earning a reputation for being strident, overconfident, materialist, and shrill.

In the United States atheists are the least-trusted minority group (more distrusted than gays, recent immigrants, and Muslims) and an effort is underway for atheism and other naturalistic or secular worldviews to become as culturally accepted as supernatural worldviews. It is clear that their movement is determined, but it is equally clear that the resistance from religious communities, particularly among politically active religious schools such as Baylor University or Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, is strong.

Last month the British Humanist Association and Richard Dawkins backed a bus campaign in the UK, which was deliberately saccharine, and in Dawkins’ words, open, undogmatic, positive, and peaceful in promoting the naturalistic worldview. The slogan on the bus adverts is: “There’s probably no God, now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” The slogan is being countered this month by a series of disturbingly confident ripostes. Among them: “There definitely is a God, so join the Christian Party and enjoy your life.” If this were not enough of a religious kerfuffle, the atheists’ bus campaign was actually a response to a campaign run by jesussaid.org that condemned all non-Christian passersby’s to an eternity of hellfire and torture.

In the US last week the Council for Secular Humanism challenged the findings and methodology of a widely cited religion survey published by Baylor University. The Baylor survey purported to show that the United States is not becoming more secular. More reliable sources such as Pew, NORC, and Harris show the opposite; the United States is becoming more secular. The debate is spirited, pardon the pun, and the intensity is increasing. The public debate and the research on religious affiliation are consequential because the side gaining the most ‘followers’ by 2010 (the year of the next census in the United States) will win a significant political battle. Census information determines our political boundaries and our leaders use religious survey information to determine the salability of their political positions in their respective districts. But despite surveys indicating an increasingly secular, less theistic America, the atheists’ message is not as effective as it might be for a complicated reason.

Religion is not about what we often claim. We often claim it is only about whether a God or gods exist. This is certainly not so. Sometimes we claim religion is about truth––metaphysical or otherwise––and sometimes, annoyingly, “Truth” with a capital “T,” as if there were a difference. We often claim it is about the afterlife or the start of life or the beginning of life, the post-universe or the pre-universe, about what ‘caused’ everything or about ‘why’ we are here. Often we wonder, as Socrates famously formulated, where our morality comes from if there are no gods to call kind acts good––or wait a second––are the gods calling the kind acts good because they are good, or are they good only because the gods say so? I’m writing to assure you that you don’t need to worry. These claims about religion are only things we discuss on the periphery––while religion is serving its more fundamental function.

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At an earlier point in my life, I would have said that religion is the babbling din people create together when they are convinced they are correct. But this is incomplete. Religion is also the collection of associations people make with and about each other when they purport to talk about life’s grand questions. It is a cluster of traditions and group histories and ethnicities and narratives. Religion is a way to observe life’s grand moments like birth and adolescence and marriage. And it is a way to grieve when life is lost, or, if one is so inclined, it is a way to cheat death entirely or begin life anew.

Religion is not simply an impermeable trash bag of dubious propositions waiting to be discarded as atheists often assume. It is more complex. It is a trash bag of dubious and sometimes dangerous and perverse propositions mixed with timeless truths and worthwhile allegory, coddled and nurtured and protected by the invisible hand of culture. The atheists’ approach thus far has been to essay a poke-and-prod at the bag of propositions, hoping to puncture it, thus exposing religion’s pungent dregs to the disgust of the coddler-at-large. But the coddler-at-large––culture––quite protective, rarely allows this. As if to say, “Don’t you dare come near my religion with that pokin’ stick!”

That has generally been the way of it. Americans are, indeed, uncomfortable talking about religion. Further, a poke at any God proposition is seen as an assault on the person who believes in Him. Humans, emissaries of their culture, become defensive when they feel their culture being impinged upon or confronted directly and the coddler-at-large has been carrying the trash bag of religion around for so long that the two have become almost indistinguishable; attacking one is attacking the other. I’m reminded of the theme song from the My Buddy and Kid Sister commercials, “My Buddy…wherever I go, He goes…my buddy and me.”

And really, this recollection is startlingly apropos. For many religions, God is a partner with whom a community or an individual can build a personal relationship, God is always present––an overseer of things, and for most religions, God cares deeply about whether or not we believe in Him. And, as anyone who has ever attempted to take a toy away from a toddler can attest, the process of separating the child from the toy is easier said than done. I submit that atheists have, for too long, focused on the toy, the trash bag of religion and religious propositions rather than on the connection between the culture that coddles it.

It is difficult for the atheist to discern sometimes where the implausible metaphysics ends and an individual’s culture, ethnicity, or other group identity begins. Where art critics or social critics or movie critics or food critics can openly criticize each other’s propositions about their art without fear of righteous reprisal and indignation, the philosopher or the scientist or the skeptical armchair naturalist treads wearily, often apologetically, when they challenge tired propositions and philosophies which would, but for culture, normally be headed for the wastebasket in any other domain for lack of evidence. Atheists are often pressured by culture to preface their remarks on religion by attempting to sound meek and mild. For example, “I’m not religious BUT I’m very principled,” or, “I’m not religious BUT I consider myself quite spiritual.” This is as if to say, “Don’t worry, you can trust me even though you don’t see me sitting in the pews on Sunday. Nobody needs to hang the threat of a tortured eternity over my head to get me to be a good person, I can handle it on my own.” This improper and unfair moral playing field, culturally imposed, is also a constant source of frustration for the atheist even if they don’t frequently address the cultural injustice directly.

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It is self-evident to the atheist that faith is not a truth-tracking device; faith is a tool of the status quo. That the person of faith is not open to a reasonable discussion is a common and appropriate criticism. Sam Harris put his frustration this way:

“Faith is what credulity becomes when it finally achieves escape velocity from the constraints of terrestrial discourse – constraints like reasonableness, internal coherence, civility, and candor.”

The general implication is that the theist just needs the atheist to explain why they’re wrong, why their side has more evidence, more explanatory power, and then that’ll be the end of the debate. But until the coddler-at-large and the trash bag of religious propositions are separated and each assessed on their own merits, this debate will rage on and naturalists will remain a frustrated minority.

To the atheist, this can be a frustrating reality, but if the movement is to take hold and make progress, it must acknowledge that before religious propositions can be challenged, they must become disentangled from culture. Unfortunately, I know of no such campaign in the history of humankind that has effectively accomplished this disentangling without significant bloodshed.

Broader political implications of the religious debate

People go to church not only to worship, but also to buy face time with other members of their community, thus establishing implicit trust between strangers. Think of God as a personal reference, a third party that two strangers share in common. A stranger––but a friend of God––becomes an acquaintance to be trusted by default, rather than a mere stranger––distrusted by default. The more liberal and inclusive God is with his Facebook friends, the larger the circle of trust between strangers becomes.

It makes sense, then, that many, if not most, Americans believe in a more ecumenical god, an Everygod if you will. But this push to expand the moral circle and the circle of trust leads to many theologically naïve and inconsistent beliefs. This is further evidence that religion is not so much about the trash bag of particular propositions as it is about religion’s more fundamental function––acting as a social and cultural glue that fosters trust and peace of mind between people who would otherwise be strangers. A man standing alone on the street with a trash bag is a possibly psychotic vagrant to be ignored or avoided, but a thousand people standing together holding trash bags are a sane, fashionable, cohesive group with a purpose. Moreover, even if they’re dressed differently or have different backgrounds, they still have something interesting to talk about.

We observed a political application of the social phenomenon of religion last week when President Obama, appealing to the Everygod, made some astoundingly naïve and incorrect, but culturally palatable claims. Obama appealed to his fellow Everygod-believing Americans to sell his policy of expanding faith-based programs. Everygod is a god who, conveniently, exists for all Christians regardless of denomination and treats them equally. And, for the more free-spirited among us (again pardon the pun), Everygod treats humans of other faiths with respect. So much so that He also allows them into heaven after an undisclosed and undefined period of reckoning.

What matters to many people is not so much that others believe in any particular god, but that others have hedged their bets similarly, perhaps heeding a naïve form of Pascal’s wager, and believe in some god, in Everygod. According to President Obama, “No matter what we choose to believe, let us remember that there is no religion whose central tenet is hate,.” He continued, “There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being. This much we know.” (Evidently our president skipped Numbers 31:1-18.)

It is difficult for me to believe President Obama is this theologically impaired, but for most people, to be impartial or to believe in no god is unacceptable. Irreligion is simply distasteful. It is a radical, reactionary philosophy––equally dogmatic, but more self-centered than religion. What our president clearly and publicly demonstrated is that it is not our theological or philosophical sophistication that matters, nor do our particular beliefs matter to most people. What is truly sacred to believers in the Everygod is the belief in the Everygod itself and whether or not this belief manifests itself socially.

I close with three recommendations for the irreligious. Before addressing religious propositions point by point, they should:

1. Highlight the ability of humans to function socially without religion (e.g., bowling leagues, community recreation, family time, neighborhood barbeques).

2. Campaign to separate religious beliefs from the nurturing hand of culture.

3. Address the fact that the playing field is unlevel, that atheists are presumed untrustworthy and immoral until proven otherwise.

Atheists are more comfortable with facts and logical propositions than they are with culture and subjective and social meaning. On a logical point-by-point basis, they will generally win a debate and evidence shines brightly in their favor. But debates are not won on truth alone. Logic and reason will quickly become white noise to the ears of the theist until the social and cultural phenomenon of religion is deconstructed and disentangled from the trash bag of religious propositions. If atheists are successful in a ‘separation of dogma and culture’ campaign, they will eventually garner a significant backing and will hopefully become less demonized in the process.