Undeserved Respect
Posted by Moiz Khan in Atheism, ReligionDec 9th, 2008 | 13 responses
Over the past year or so, I have been very active within Atheist circles; both online and in real life. Most of that time has been and much more enlightening than a lifetime of religious instruction. That relative superiority however, does not really mean very much. Many problems exist within the Atheist community on how they regard religion and there still remains great room for improvement. I personally am quite possibly the definition of the anti-religious person, from attitude to practice, I despise religion. However, I value intellectual honesty much more than I despise religion. So in accordance with that principle, I hope to explore some issues which I find to be quite common within Atheist circles and also quite annoying.
Just about every single Atheist I come across respects religion, religious people and religious festivals far too much, whether it be consciously or unconsciously. To the best of my knowledge, not a single organized religion is deserving of my respect (I have standards). They all encourage servility and non-thinking (faith). They do not want to produce adults who engage in critical thought, or for that matter, think at all. They want humans to refer their responsibility upward, and it is with god on your side (not the other way around) that, “all is permitted.” These people are completely out of touch with reality, and respecting their effective community organizing ability is absurd and potentially dangerous. They encourage group-think, a concept that is at all times in conflict with modernity. How can one possibly respect delusional beliefs and value truth at the same time? If someone walked around in New York City saying that they were born to a virgin mother or that, they are their own father but at the same time their father’s son…they would be sent to a psychiatric ward (and they should be). Likewise with anyone who believes in the teaching of a man 2000 years ago who makes those same claims (any many more stupid ones).
So, when I discuss Christianity, by that I am referring to the faith which promotes the often immoral philosophy of Jesus who probably never existed; or say, when I discuss Judaism, a religion which condones slavery and genocide and respects maniacs who would kill their own son because of voices in their head; or Islam, that religion which was propagated by the sword by tyrannical military dictators, some of which are also pedophiles (Muhammad); I discuss these faiths with that knowledge in mind. Nothing good has ever come from the religious mentality, or from any servile mentality for that matter. I simply cannot act with respect to these religions when Christianity wants you to love god more than your family, or when Islam breaks women down to a point beyond that of the African slave or the Russian serf. The knowledge that I have is not compatible with respect; and it does not allow me to act with anything but bottomless contempt for this nonsense. So when it comes to religious festivals about Jesus’ birthday, I simply will not participate. But, if you want to take part in the Pagan booze fest (the precursor to Christmas), consider me in. With regards to any “interfaith” activity, let us not forget that religions are more alike than they are different. Sure they may disagree on insignificant details (like who fathered someone) but at the core, they are all the same. They contain the same attitude and that is what really matters. They realize that for each of them to survive, they cannot wage intellectual attacks at each other all the time. Violent attacks are another matter, those require little justification, and very little thought. The intellectual attack on Christianity can be slightly modified and then waged against Islam. Likewise with another religion like American-Style-Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, or any other absurdity.
When I use the word “god” you may have noticed that it has never been capitalized on this blog. This conventional use of capitalizing a word simply because it represents the notion of some elderly father figure who cannot get his act together and continues to be the fuel to much violence and hatred around the world. god, regardless of its position or context in a sentence will not be capitalized by me. I ask others to join me on that perhaps small, but maybe significant piece of subtle activism.
Another important area of undeserved respect, is the respect the entire society has given to organized religions in the form of tax breaks. This is truly a bizarre situation, and even if it wasn’t unconstitutional (which it most likely is), it would still be a large form of undeserved respect. Simply due to the nature of America as a largely Christian nation, it is the Christian churches who receive most of the benefit from tax breaks and a special charitable status. These churches do, in fact do charity work, but it is the impact that they have on the intellect of children (and flock in general) that really is concerning. I have not heard a single church service that proclaimed the beauty of evolution, even if most of their church hierarchy “support” evolution. A good number of these churches attempt (successfully too) to drill creationism, hell fire, and all sorts of other lovely things into the minds of their flock. I think this is probably the biggest threat that organized religion poses to modernity, their continual attack on science, and science education. These churches do not deserve a special non-taxable status, and considering their counter-productive stances on perhaps, it is they who should be paying heavy fines for the propagation of nonsense. Henry David Thoreau once said, “I did not see why the schoolmaster should be taxed to support the priest, and not the priest the schoolmaster” and I full-heartily agree with Mr. Thoreau.
Respecting people. This is an issue that comes up often and often leads to charges of empty-hearted-Atheists. Lets get something straight, when I disrespect someones’ religion or religious belief, I am not attacking them personally. So when I question the existence of Jesus, or accuse Muhammed of being a pedophile, I am NOT trying to disrespect a person who respects those people. The only ones who I would be disrespecting in those situations are both dead already (or never really existed), so no need to care about their feelings. I will never make a personal attack on someone simply because of their means of invisible support. On the other hand, I will if their religious beliefs inspire them to take part in bigotry, as they often do. If I wanted to disrespect someone directly I could (I can do it quite well actually), but when I am attacking their religion, it is strictly intellectual and not personal. It is the case that people will be offended by my words, and I do not deny that is common, but it is simply impossible to criticize religion without being “offensive” to someone. If I constantly take into consideration the feelings of those who read my work, or of religious people in general, I could hardly write anything controversial. That sort of self-censorship is very common in Liberal circles (the originators of the Politically Correctness Movement) and the Atheistic circles, which are often essentially the same crowd. I have been constantly told by others to not be so scathing of religion, or try perhaps not to be controversial. Such nonsense is unfortunately extremely common, and very difficult to fight. It seems as if more or less everyone cares far too much about what others may think or feel and not enough about the root of such self-censorship. I refuse to take part in it, and in short, I will not censor myself.
Update, added in the second to last paragraph after a couple requests.
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13 Responses to “Undeserved Respect”
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hear, hear!
Will,
I find the argument from causality to be illogical. In short, it asserts that everything has a cause, and logically following there must have been a first cause, so God is the first cause. There is no evidence to support that the first cause is "God" as most people define him (that is to say, a being that intentionally created us, is omnipotent/omniscient, and intervenes in human affairs) . I suppose that we can arbitrarily assign the word "god" to this cause if we want to. But causality offers no proof that the first cause fits our contemporary idea of a deity.
And even if it did, it would certainly provide no proof for any individual god (or gods). Who is to say the first cause wasn't Chronos? Allah? Odin? The Flying Spagetti Monster? (I know they weren't responsible for creation in their respective mythos, but you get the point). Even if Aquinas' argument from causality DID prove a god, it proves the existence of the christian god as much as it proves the existence of Odin, Zeus, and the FSM.
Jeff- I agree with you, I don't think that causality argument holds up. I mention the argument only to demonstrate the point that there is a very significant different between someone who believes with blind faith and someone who believes with some amount of reason behind it, and lumping the two groups together would be an outrage.
And in terms of the "debate" as to Jesus' existence, just understand that your position is the extreme outlier, not the "most likely" one.
Oh, FSM, where do I even start with this article?
“Jesus who probably never existed”
This is just plain wrong. Most historians agree that there was a man named Jesus of Nazareth who was born around 3 BC and died around 26 AD. (Give or take on the dates). If you don’t believe me, check it out here http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcno.htm Jesus’ divinity is highly contested; his existence, rarely.
Christianity does not discourage reason. Thomas Aquinas, one of the most respected thinkers of the Catholic Church, encouraged believers to question their faith to make sure they knew why they believed what they did. As the Saint put it, “Reason in man is rather like God in the world.” Do some fundamentalist branches encourage blind faith? Sure. But making a blanket statement about all religions based on a minority is ignorant.
You aren’t proving anything by refusing to capitalize the word God. I take that to be a stylistic convention, in the same way that it is convention to use “him” as the neutral gender, singular pronoun. Some argue this as sexist, I say it’s simply convention, and if you aren’t going to follow the rules of convention, people are going to think you simply don’t know any better.
You say in your blog that you were raised a Muslim. You are familiar then, with the tenets of Islam, but you seem very ignorant in terms of what you know about Christianity. It seems that your membership in Atheist organizations has developed a sort of groupthink for you-the exact same thing you so strongly opposed. If you’re going to continue bashing Christianity, I would encourage you to do some research about the subject at hand, so that at least you know what you’re talking about.
You’re definitely right; you don’t have to respect the beliefs of Theists. However, when most people enter an intellectual debate, they want their opponent to hear and understand where they are coming from. You don’t have to respect their point of view as valid, but you have to respect that people have a right to believe whatever they wish, regardless of whether it seems completely ridiculous to you.
I think you’ll find that there is a level of antagonism that will make people immediately ignore anything you have to say. The more respect you have for people’s beliefs, the more receptive you’ll find your audiences.
I think you have real potential to have some wonderful material in the future, but you definitely need some more research. I wish you the best as you continue your journeys through life, blogging, and wherever else the Flying Spaghetti Monster may take you.
-Will
The link you posted that you state "most historians…" Almost all of those sources are Christian sources that were after Jesus. And the ones who are not Christians are still highly contested. It seems if anything that adds more to my side than it does for yours.
Of course there have been people who were Christians and encouraged the concept of reason. But, still, the resounding majority do not. Exceptions do not make the rule, and I don't think anyone would deny that there have been individuals who were Christians and great thinkers…The authorities for the most part (popes and high clergy) have been against human reason simply by their profession as those who propagate the attitude of faith.
Accusing me of lack of knowledge on Christianity on this post which rarely discusses Christianity is absurd. I really don't see where that criticism comes from…
On the point about "people have the right to believe what they want." Of course they do, and I never said they can't. You are making a point on something I haven't made a point about. My problem is not with private and personal belief, its more with public belief. If someone wants to pass off their beliefs as true and reasonable, that is where I object.
Overall I am confused by your criticism, and would love to read it if you articulate it some more.
The idea of Jesus' existence is not contested, trust me. I'll defer to the all-mighty Wikipedia on this one-
"Nevertheless, non-historicity has been rejected by almost all Biblical scholars and historians.[114][115][116] In Jesus Outside the New Testament (2000), Robert E. Van Voorst a Professor of New Testament Studies at Western Theological Seminary wrote, "The theory of Jesus' nonexistence is now effectively dead as a scholarly question….Biblical scholars and classical historians now regard it as effectively refuted."[117] Author Michael Grant stated that standard historical criteria prevent one from rejecting Jesus' existence.[118]"
This is from the Jesus article, under the section "Mythical view" if you'd like to read more. Even if you don't consider Wikipedia to be a reliable source, it has references that I'm sure you'd find enlightening.
The comment "the resounding majority [of Christians do not encourage the concept of reason]" immediately shows me that you are unfamiliar with Christianity. (Which is fine of course. I am very ignorant when it comes to Muslim ideas.) The main reason I mention this is that you make sweeping generalities about religion in general, that are true in minorities, not in the majority. I reference Christianity here because that is the religion with which I am most familiar and can back up most effectively.
Not all faith is blind faith. I would argue that believing in the Bible literally would be blind faith, in the sense that the Catholic church itself teaches that the Bible should not be read literally. ABC news did a study that found that 1/3 of Christians believe in the Bible literally (http://www.gallup.com/poll/27682/OneThird-America...I would call this blind faith. However, we still have 2/3 of Christians who believe without blind faith, certainly not a "resounding majority."
However, there are many arguments for the existence of God that conform to reason. I go back to Aquinas again because he's was a huge proponent of using reason to justify God's existence. His casualty argument is a great example-the essence of the argument being that everything had to come from something, so the universe had to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is God.
The biggest issue is that a belief in a God does not necessarily conflict with empirical evidence, and thus, a belief in God can be substantiated by reason. A good example is the theory of evolution. I take a look at that theory and marvel at how nature is so self-sustaining, and needs no creator. A theist, on the other hand, looks at the theory and marvels at how God made such a great way of creating.
The point I'm trying to make is that you have to distinguish between those with blind faith, and those with justifiable faith. I would imagine you would be writing to those with justifiable faith. Atheists already believe (more or less) what you do, (though I do recognize that this essay was written as a means of further polarizing existing atheists). However, in future posts, you want to write to those who have justifiable faith, since these are the theists who are willing to listen to reason. People with blind faith won't want to listen to what you have to say, and will simply tune you out. If I had justifiable faith, I would be insulted that you would lump me together with someone with blind faith, and honestly, I'd find that insane that you would put the two groups together. You would essentially be losing your audience if you put these two groups together.
Anything else I said that you have issue with, I'll be more than happy to tackle tomorrow, I've got to get some shut-eye though.
The real question as to the historical veracity of Jesus or any figure is simple: how many seperate independent accounts are there of this character. The Bible itself is out because the gospels are clearly a collection of stories that were orally passed down. None of the Gospel authors were ever alive when Jesus was or had seen him personally. Go here:
http://www.rationalchristianity.net/jesus_extrabi...
There's a list of non-biblical source for Jesus. Read them and tell me if you can figure out what they all have in common. Hint: It doesn't lend well to the existence of a real man.
Now, if the question is where there was a guy named Jesus or Emmanuel in this region around this time, the answer is yes..dozens of them. There were people attempting to be the messiah so many times over that it must have become rather annoying to those in the day.
To be fair, here is a document from the same page I linked to arguing the other side. I like to try to fair here. The answer isn't known one way or the other.
http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/jesusexisthub...
Note the source is a christian apologetics ministry.
And a link on the other side:
http://nobeliefs.com/exist.htm
Source being an atheist guy.
I realize the topic is sort of tangential. I'm done now.
I'll check out those sources and get back to you, but from whats written in the wiki article does not mean much. So, perhaps the sources will shed some light on this situation.
The reason why I say the majority of Christians do not encourage the concept of reason is actually based upon a distinction made by I believe Socrates (though I could be wrong on the person). The difference between a religious person and a nonreligious person is the attitude of faith. Faith is literally the cop-out technique people resort to because they have no material evidence. I could interchange any religion which requires faith as a necessary step and my statement would still be valid. I am not picking on Christianity in particular.
You make distinction between blind faith and some other sort of faith which is distinct from some sort of other kind of faith. Of course there a difference between a common member of Al-Qaeda or the Young Earth Creationist and a normal modern person. But, what difference does that make on the religion itself? That just means that the people who take it word for word are apparently wrong and the people who interject with their own ideas are apparently more right according to you. But, on what basis do you make that judgment? Certainly I don't think there exists any doctrinal based reasons to read the Bible metaphorical instead of literal.
What I am trying to say is, it is not the religion nor the faith that encourages reason, it is human common sense. I would go as far as saying, it is human common sense that contradicts faith and religion.
Of course there are differences between blind faith and those who believe something with a little reason. And yet, you still agree the arguments don't hold up. So, basically the difference is people who believe in complete nonsense and those who believe in complete nonsense for other reasons (that don't hold up either). What a great distinction…
People do have the right to believe what they want. But when irrational belief begins to cause harm to others, those of us in the reality-based community have an obligation to speak up.
And atheism is, in the same way, an "extreme outlier" position. It also happens to be the correct one. What is popular is not always right, true, or accurate.