I've been reanalyzing my fundamental bias against religion, trying to figure out where it comes from. I've spoken before about the hypocrisy of creationists but there are a lot of people who either are not creationists or at least apolitical creationists-- meaning they're not trying to change my mind or alter the way science is taught.
But when I think about it my bias against religion is much deeper, much more fundamental to my view of religion. My understanding of religion is colored by my bias against Christianity as much as anything. This is probably not as surprising as I would prefer to think. I was raised as a Southern Methodist and, logically, when I rebelled against religion that was what I was most familiar with.
On the other hand, I have no little affection towards Bhuddism and Judaism, a slight bias against Islam and in my mind Hinduism marks a blank spot in my consciousness. Lots of gods? What's that all about?
But it's Christianity that drives my anger. So it becomes apparent that my bias against religion is really a bias against Christianity. Whatever negative feelings I have towards other religions probably the result from behavior that is similar or different from Christianity.
I have a lot of issues with Christianity: substitution of internal motivation for behavior in the judgment of sin, the concept of original sin, the cult of Mary, the reliance of revelation in spiritual change, the lack of rigorous logic, rigid authoritarianism. Different strains of Christianity have a different complex of these issues. But when I boil them down, when I really figure out what bothers me about Christianity, it is this: Christians are not better humans than non-Christians. Christians have their saintly idols but an inspirational idol is only valuable if it inspires the rank and file. If the rank and file are not fundamentally better as human beings, then what good is the religion?
I base my subjective interpretation of this purely on my own experience but, since religion is a subjective experience, I think that's just fine.
Humans are just humans, right? Why should we expect a religion to make us better humans?
There's a simple response to this. If a religion doesn't make us better people what good is it? How can a religion, any religion, justify the financial expense, mental cost and human effort if it doesn't make us better people?
By and large, I've been impressed with the Jews I've met. They tend to be better educated, more tolerant and more interesting to be around than most Christians. I have the same feeling towards Bhuddists-- but my sample size is small so I can't vouch for a trend.
The first thing that attracted me to Judaism was its mandate of education. To pursue learning, religious or secular, is a good thing as defined by Holy Scripture. Christianity is a Johnny come lately on this since the common folk weren't even encouraged to read until a couple of centuries ago. Contrast this with the Bar Mitzvah in Judaism, where a young man must read the Torah in the original Hebrew, and understand it, as part of his manhood ceremony. Education is a mitzvah-- a good work in the world. A blessing. I've met devout Christians who could barely write their name in the ground with a stick, much less understand and read the bible.
But even worse, I've met a number of highly intelligent Christians who have had to put their minds in straitjackets, sold themselves into intellectual poverty in order to satisfy the requirements of Christian dogma. The resulting limited minds are hard to watch. What makes humans unique is not our gift for altruism, our kindness or our love of beauty. Our cousins, the great apes, have all of these things. What sets us apart is our intelligence, our ability to transcend our biology. To deliberately dumb yourself down, to refuse to look at what your eyes and ears tell you, is tantamount to selling your soul. To deny the intelligence that is every human's birthright is to deny one's humanity.
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