I'm attempting to read Christopher Hitchens' book God is Not Great, and finding it slow going. Sometimes he is excellent--I don't entirely agree with his position on waterboarding but you couldn't ask for a better article on it than the one he wrote--but sometimes you get the feeling that he lost his train of thought and just kept writing anyway. Sometimes it seems as if he'd be content to say "I'm an atheist, that guy's a Christian, this one is a Jew, the other one is a Buddhist, let's all leave each other alone"; but then a few paragraphs later, he's saying "Religion poisons everything."
Granted, a lot of things have been done, and are being done, in the name of Christianity which no actual believer would ever countenance; there are plenty of Jews who don't follow their religion; I don't imagine anyone thinks Mohammed would approve of Sunni fighting Shia, and so forth. Some atheists argue that because evil has been done in the name of religion, therefore religious faith should be abolished (I'm not sure whether Hitchens is taking that position or not). However, evil has also been done in the name of atheism--arguably more, by the USSR and Red China, than by any religion--so we'd need to abolish that too and then what would we have?
Nonetheless, saying "I had a bad experience at the hands of some Christians" is like saying "I had horrible parents when I was growing up" or "I was in an awful marriage" or "My government really abused me" or "I was miserable in high school." Okay, all those things do happen, and shouldn't. But it does not follow that therefore children should be raised in creches instead of by their parents, that no one should be married, that all governments are evil and anarchy is the only acceptable option, or that no one should get an education. Whether your faith is true or not is a separate question, but I just don't see that a faith is rendered invalid because some of the people who profess to believe it don't live up to it.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
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Faith to me is a personal conviction and is between you and any Supreme Being.
Religion to me is an organizational structure, often feudal in nature, sometimes prepressive and often not at all progressive, and like all bureaucracies, is subject to manipulation by empire builders, men of greed and influence, and those for whom ideology trumps common humanity.
I think it is fair to say that religion gets the blame for many wars, conflics, attrocities, etc. where you could equally say 'lust for power', 'greed', 'totalitarian dictatorship', etc. all play as much of a role often using religion as a guise and a blind.
At the same time, I think it is fair to say that true believers have done some pretty horrid things *in the name of religion and in the honest belief that it was the right thing to do*. There are examples of it from the Crusades and I'm aware of others at other points in history.
Faith (really, any conviction or ideology that is absolute) can lead one to make decisions that logically align with that conceptualization of the world but that end up being nothing short of horrific.
I don't think you should single out Faith or Religion for special treatment, except insofar as they may recieve special privilege in society's esteem or in the law. In those cases, I think it is appropriate to meditate and act upon the excesses and extremes.
Further, something to keep in mind when you pose the issue about things done in the name of Christianity that no believer would countenance nor that Mohammed not agree with Shia and Sunni fighting - that suggests a somewhat monolithic or uniform view of a faith or religion.
I suggest instead that the mere presence of so many sectarian views suggests that single interpretations of a faith or single flavours of a religion have a tough time (rationally) being considered authoritative. There is too much diversity of view on these sorts of points, both within and without any given faith group or community of believers.
I am quite sure that my conception of Christianity would not find the massacring of infidels acceptable. I am also quite sure that some Crusaders, even more heartfelt in their belief than I, would find this not only acceptable but desirable and right. And we both, allegedly, have read the same scriptures and are of the same religion and faith.
The interpretation of any faith is a subject of temporal relativism - religions change over time as do the general interpretations of a faith. Some decry this, some embrace it - I simply acknowledge it. I do not think there is any one clear answer on the question of who has the right faith. I do not think there should be - I suspect this is part of the challenge of life that makes our own decisions matter.
Does Religion poison everything? No. Has Religion (or particular religions) been a proximite cause of evil at points in the historical narrative? I'd have to say yes. Does this taint every bit of faith or religion? Of course not, any more so than the actions of individual aetheists taint all non-believers and all non-belief.
The world is a mucky, messy place with few clear lines, few certain conclusions, and if you look hard enough, you can almost always find some small point of empathy for an enemy and some small point of divergence with an ally.
This is generally why I find absolutism of any stripe alternately vexing in the extreme or tragically hilarious - I tend to think those who think that way are either perceptually impaired or are sadly ignorant of the broad and narrow strokes of the human historical narrative.
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