There were some comments in response to my post on writing sermons during the time I was a lay preacher in the Methodist Church that expressed surprise that I had been religious at one time and curious about what caused me to abandon my faith. So I thought I would write an explanation.
The main thing that I want to emphasize is that Christianity has been an important part of my life. My personal experience with religion was very positive all the way through. What caused me to leave was not any kind of anger or disillusionment with religion but simply an inability to reconcile my growing understanding of science with even the most minimal formulations of what a belief in the existence of a god implied. I started the transition to atheism in my mid-30s, after I got my PhD in physics. The small seeds of doubt were always there but one can always rationalize away their existence if one is determined enough. In fact, in the progressive, intellectual religious circles I moved in, doubt as a part of belief was taken for granted, not viewed as a sign of weakness or a lack of faith.
I grew up in a family that attended the Methodist Church in Sri Lanka. My family was firmly in the liberal Protestant tradition that was not judgmental of other religions and believed that what kind of person you were was the most important thing and that good people would somehow go to heaven whatever their beliefs. They treated much of the Bible as metaphorical and not as a history or science text. They were definitely not of the evangelical, born-again school. We did not say grace before meals or have family prayers or Bible studies, nor do I recall having any deep discussions about God or religion. We were all believers and went to church on most but not every Sundays but that was it.
I had no trouble being a religious believer and was heavily involved in the Church youth groups that were common in Sri Lanka and formed a key part of church life. These provided an opportunity for the young people in the church to get together for a mixture of social and religious activities and were a lot of fun. They also were one of the few venues where young people of different genders could meet and socialize.
My transition to disbelief was not caused by any kind of epiphany or major event in my life or feelings of anger towards god or religion because of some tragedy. Those are often the reasons for people to lose their faith. While I was aware of the negative things that religion was responsible for, I put it down to people being led astray and not following the real religious principles. I retained nothing but warm feelings for the religious views of my family and the role that the clergymen, churches, and religious organizations played in my life. All the religious leaders that had a strong influence on me, such as the two Anglican school chaplains and the minister of my Methodist church were all humane, socially liberal, and progressive thinkers who took a sophisticated approach to religion. They were definitely not of the ‘You are sinners who will go to hell unless you repent and accept Jesus’ school of thought. They were more of the ‘What does belief in God imply for how we should live on Earth and what does the Bible have to say about it?’ kind of people They were people to whom one could ask challenging questions about God and the Bible and they would not bat them away. As a result, I was able to engage with them in theological study and discussions at a fairly sophisticated level, using the writings of theologians, that enabled me to arrive at what I felt was a satisfactory reconciliation of science and religion.
So what caused me to disengage from religion? As I studied science more deeply, especially beginning in graduate school, I just could not reconcile the scientific worldview I was developing with a belief in the existence of any supernatural power. The old arguments that I had been using to convince myself that science and belief in a god were compatible no longer seemed to work as well. There seemed to be a fundamental conflict in what science was telling me, that the world behaved according to physical laws, while religion was telling me that some supernatural agency was able to overrule those laws. Worse, this supernatural agency was not made of any material substance (since we could not detect it) and yet apparently could intervene to change the course of events, could hear our prayers, and even know what was in our minds. It began to seem increasingly preposterous.
But that does not mean I gave up belief easily. My transition was extremely gradual because I resisted it every step of the way. I had for so long been a believer and so active in the church and it had formed such a major part of my worldview that I did not want to let go and tried desperately to retain my belief in God. Furthermore, my religiousness had been an integral part of the way that my family viewed me and giving up on it felt like a kind of betrayal of them and a disparagement of what they believed. I knew that it would cause some concern and disappointment for them. The internal struggle to abandon views one has held for so long is not limited to religion. We see that in science as well when there is a paradigm shift that requires people who had invested much of their lives in the service of the old paradigm to now abandon it. That is never easy and they will often construct quite ingenious rationales to retain their old allegiances.
But despite my best efforts over a period of years, the science and religion pieces just could not be made to fit together and the contradictions became more acute over time. I finally came to the conclusion that for my intellectual peace of mind, I had to make a choice between science and religion, and that the more rational choice was to reject the existence of any gods, since that was the belief that had no supporting evidence. For a lifelong believer to reject the existence of God is not easy and is initially accompanied by a great deal of apprehension that, if one were wrong, one might be risking sending one’s soul to eternal damnation after one dies. But that fear eventually goes away and the realization that there are no gods also brought with it a sense of relief that things now made sense and that there were no longer any fundamental contradictions to address.
I have been an atheist now for over three decades and am very comfortable with the awareness that there is no heaven, no gods, we do not have immortal souls, and that this life is all that we have and we have to make the most of it, not just for ourselves but for everyone.
Interesting path. Mine was a little simpler and strictly due to the people I saw at the front of the United Methodist church my mother attended and took me to when I was young (just north of Lansing, MI, so hardly what you’d consider an extremely fundamentalist area.)
* One minister spent a great deal of his sermons lamenting the Civil and Voting Rights act, proclaiming they would ruin the country by giving “them” the freedom they didn’t deserve
* He also railed against anti-war protests (during Vietnam), calling for protesters to be sent to Alcatraz
* His sermon after MLK was assassinated sent the message that “a huge Communist risk” to the country had been eliminated and the killer should be honored
There was more along the same vein, and the minister who followed him (as far as we know, he was simply sent to a new church as part of an ordinary rotation, or whatever the term was) was no better: the same sort of crap was spewed. It was bad enough that even my mother, who gave them far too many chances, stopped attending for several years.
Around 2002, when my 94 year old father was dying of colon cancer that had spread, the current minister at that church told my mother that having hospice come in was “giving up” and “god wouldn’t forgive her or my father’s soul”. That same assclown, after my father died, had the gall to call my parent’s house to say “I’m sure (my father’s name) would want to honor our church by giving a donation to our renovations.” I was lucky enough to be the one to pick up the phone. He did not get a donation.
My point isn’t that every minister in the church was that vile — I’m sure they weren’t. My point is that the behavior and attitudes these 3 scumbags demonstrated was accepted by the church administration. It was pretty clear (to me) that if a decent person couldn’t be down with that organization at all, and that if they could allow people like that to “spread the good word” there wasn’t anything to value in that good word.
I suspect a lot of people lose their faith by recognizing, over time, that they had no more use for it. I know the conversion to atheism stories we generally hear revolve around traumatic events, but I think the slow deconversion process is probably more common than we think.
I never de-converted because I wasn’t raised in a religion. Our household was not religious, although we observed cultural events which originated in religion, like Halloween and Christmas. I called myself agnostic until I was in my mid-thirties when I decided to answer the question of the need for god to my own satisfaction. I took stock of what I knew at the time, and came to the conclusion that there was nothing in the observable universe which couldn’t have a naturalistic explanation. That is, there is plenty we don’t know about physics, cosmology, geology, biology, etc., but nothing which we have observed where a supernatural explanation is the only possibility. Recognizing our ignorance is better than accepting a supernatural explanation for things we don’t know. The only area of knowledge that, at the time, I felt I didn’t understand in sufficient depth to say there was no supernatural element was in how consciousness occurs. I then spent enough time looking into what is known about consciousness to convince myself that there is no need to posit a supernatural explanation for it. With that door to doubt closed, I comfortably call myself an atheist.
But I’d like to share a family story about why religion was not important to my family. This story goes back to my grandfather. When my grandfather was born, the son of a Jewish father and a Methodist mother, he was named William. When my grandfather’s brother was born six years later, my great-grandfather named the new child Abraham. But several days after his birth, my great-grandmother changed his name to Arthur. The reason given by my great-grandmother to her husband and first son, and this was in the 1920’s, was that having a Jewish name would make his future life more difficult. A person being named Abraham would be seen as Jewish, which would prejudice people against him for his entire life.
This was shocking to my grandfather. At the age of six he had never considered that belonging to different religions would affect how people treated you, positively or negatively. He was also shocked, and at the age of six this can be shocking, when someone who you’ve know for several days under one name is arbitrarily given another. He was even shocked that his mother would over-rule his father’s choice of names.
The considerations of that action by his mother convinced him that religion was a social construct and a fraud. I don’t know if he ever openly professed atheism, but he raised his own family without religion, and our family has been areligous since. I’ve also been told that he never called his brother by either Arthur or Abraham, but always referred to his brother as The Duke. However, I cannot confirm this, and suspect this may have been an affectation adopted later in his life.
I was never particularly religious to start with. My mother was the most religious member of our family, and she was far more of the ‘church as centre of community’ rather than ‘church as moral exemplar’ sort of person. (A few years as the Secretary at our local church certainly put the lie to any impressions of that.) In the bulletin the church put out for my parents’ 50th anniversary, after describing my mother’s contributions to the church, they added a note that my father ‘had decided religion was not for him’. And that was pretty much the end of it.
Two of my great grandfathers were priests, and my parents were actually married by one of them, but even of my grandparents only my mother’s mother was particularly religious.
So, yes, no great traumatic events here either, just a case of ‘why would I need all these sometimes-pretty illusions to convince me to do what is obviously the right thing anyway?’
Ah yes, a god-fearing Christian. The carrot and the stick.
So there’s that bonus to losing a Christian belief: no more worry about Hell.
I notice there’s always a focus on the positives that type of religious belief brings, but not much about the worries it therefore concomitantly brings.
But clearly not Heaven and Hell, as per the previous quotation.
I also notice how many people try to excuse their particular religion as not being particularly… um, religious. 🙂
This belief isn’t consistent with
I sort of understand. My path was simpler than yours. My parents took us to church (Lutheran) and we attended Sunday School. I also knew people who were Catholic, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim. The stories I heard didn’t make much sense, but I also knew there were other stories which were not consistent with the ones I was told. Around age 11, I decided it didn’t work for me, and I became an atheist before I even knew the word. Still, there was some apprehension about rejection of the stories. It faded fairly quickly.
One thing I never acquired was the sense, that seems to be fairly common among atheists, that my path somehow made me superior to those who maintained their beliefs.
Rob, a bit like children who feel superior because they didn’t maintain their belief in Santa.
(Whyever would they think that?)
John @6: We all know you feel superior.
Yes, Rob; we also know you feel superior to those who feel superior.
Dick-waving aside, you have evaded the Santa simile. For good reason.
Ah, the argumentum ad “he who smelt dealt it”. You’re far too sophisticated for me, John.
Missing an “it”.
I grew up in a Lutheran family, in a Lutheran country that still teaches religion at public* schools. My family never went to church on Sundays or even in Christmas. Weddings, funerals or confirmations were the only reason to go to church. My mom, aunts and grandma might go attend the “The Most Beautiful Christmas Carols” sing-along in the third Advent Sunday in the church. Baptisms were carried out mostly at home (Lutherans baptize at infancy).
My dad didn’t believe in God and never talked about it before I was a teenager. My mom still believes in God and she did talk about it a bit, but not very much. Any kind of born-again-style religiosity was frowned upon and condemned, especially JWs, Pentecostalism and Laestadianism.
I was a bookworm and read a lot of things and believed the religious stuff. However, I also got interested in zoology and read about evolution and fossils. At first (I must have been about 8), I reconciled the creation myth they taught in the religion lessons at school by thinking that the days in the myth must have been quite long.
When I was 11, I was a lazy kid (but good in some subjects because I had read relatively much in my free time, both fact and fiction) and my teacher discovered that I had done none of the exercises in my religion exercise book and had me do all of them for the next homework. I was childishly pissed off, but that broke the emotional attachment for religion and I no longer wanted to make any excuses for reconciling the bible and the books about animals. My kiddy religious faith was all about believing what I was told and what I read, I didn’t really feel anything supernatural.
I was legally able to renounce my church membership at 16 with parental approval. My parents approved and I did so. This also meant that religion lessons at school were no longer mandatory for me. This made it slightly easier for me to handle the workload in senior high school**. My decision didn’t cause any drama.
__
* = American style of public, i.e. municipal, not British style of public, i.e. privately owned and expensive.
** = I had chosen both advanced courses in math and physics as well as three non-native languages (Swedish, English and German), most people took either one or the other. I was a bit less lazy at 16 than at 11.
Thanks for the story, Mano!
Rob Grigjanis@#5:
This belief isn’t consistent with
It seems to me the problem is the contrast between “belief” and “understanding” -- we can come to understand the nature of the universe and understand that god doesn’t exist and there is no hell, but it still takes a concerted effort of will (backed by understanding) to overcome the habit of belief.
I’ve always felt that religion tries to inculcate in us behaviors that are similar to OCD responses, i.e.: “step on a crack, break your mother’s back” -- it doesn’t make sense but it doesn’t have to.
Concurring with Marcus on the thanks!
Mine was very simple: I have been an atheist 100% of my life, at least in the loose sense of not being theistic. No member of my family is religious, and so there was no pressure from home to believe or pretend to believe. It helps that I was a very sceptical person for as long as I can remember, rejecting Santa, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny when they were brought up. It helps that there was only ever a token effort to try to convince me of those things.
Even while attending some christian schools, I regarded the whole concept of religion as… something for other people. When I began to think more critically about these concepts in high school, I called myself an agnostic for several years. I think this was partly because some of my friends were christian; without necessarily being conscious of it, I think their company made me shy away from the atheist label for a while out of a desire to not seem antagonistic to their beliefs. But that phase did not last very long, and in my later teens I was very much a vociferous atheist who attended creationist seminars to pester them with questions afterwards, watched debates,
ate babies,and read Dawkins and other notables on the subject.Vey interesting Mano and thanks for the post. Growing up in a country where Christianity is the norm I’d also ask what it’s like as a Christian in a country where they are very much different in the minority. You’ve mentioned before that Buddhist monks still a fair bit of sway over public affairs in Sri Lanka. What was the attitude of the Buddhist majority towards minority religions?
And as with others, Many Thanks for the story !
Marcus @13:
We can? That’s a very bold statement. I’d put it much more modestly. We can recognize patterns in what we observe, to the extent that we can embody those observations in laws and theories which even, occasionally, allow us to (approximately) predict stuff. So far, we’ve been able to cover a tiny fraction of all the stuff that’s going on. Calling that ‘understanding’ is a stretch.
I hate to break this to you, but atheism is a belief. If D is a proposition, so is ¬D. An eminently reasonable one, in my view, simply because I see no compelling reasons to believe in deities, and some compelling reasons not to. Other people seem to have compelling reasons to believe (like Mano’s progressive theistic interlocutors). I don’t really understand those reasons, but neither do I dismiss them as the result of faulty reasoning or intellectual laziness. People are bloody complicated.
This resonates strongly to my experience. I was Presbyterian; but later Uniting church (of Australia) formed by union with Methodist and Congregationalist.
My family was also in a liberal tradition, but more active in practice than your family, I think. We had family prayers and a short bible reflection every morning before breakfast. Both my parents were ordained, so I was a child of the manse; and very involved in my own right as well as I grew older, taking some leadership roles (I became an elder of the congregation in my early twenties), and had been involved as a member and leader in youth clubs.
Meeting with more fundamentalist/evangelical varieties of belief, and also other traditions entirely, fostered an interest in apologetics and reconcilations of specifically Christian belief with what we have learned about the world collaboratively across lines of religion (science being a major but not the only example). But the end of that process for me was atheism, around my mid twenties.
An interesting side note is that now, as I am in my 60s, I am no longer as interested in debates as I was in my 30s and 40s; and am thoroughly comfortable in my philosophical perspectives (atheistic, materialist, humanist). But I am again connected with the church! My father, in his mid 90s (Mum has passed), remains very active. He is still preaching to help out a local parish with multiple congregations and one minister, and very active visiting the elderly in nursing homes and the like. But as he no longer drives, I am assisting him. I attend church with him (or did, pre-pandemic) and am a welcome de-facto member of the congregation, even though most folks are aware that I am not a believer. It’s a bit awkward at times, but no real hardship and I am very happy to support my Dad even though we don’t share a belief.
My path was tough and, like Mano’s, took a long time. My father was actually a minister, in the great tradition of liberal Christianity that flourished in the 70s (Godspell! the Avery and Marsh songbook! Balloons! Marches for peace and justice!) My family was always a source of strength for me, and religion was always a part of our family identity.
I can honestly say that, in almost every church I was ever involved with, religion was a positive influence, in the sense that they all helped middle-class people behave more kindly towards their poorer neighbors than they probably otherwise would have. In fact, I rather wish atheism as a movement had a similar spirit.
I came in through the skeptical movement. After a few years studying how people pulled the wool over their own eyes with aliens and ghosts, it became glaringly obvious that the supernatural beliefs of religion functioned exactly the same way. And even though I no longer believe in any supernatural deity, I still think, at least in my own experience, that religion does more good than evil (though it’s a pretty close balance, maybe 51-49%).
brucegee1962:
Did you account for the fact that believing in unwarranted, ridiculous and incoherent stuff is epistemologically pernicious?
(Voltaire: “Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities”)
PS (can’t resist):
Why the qualification? Don’t tell me you believe in a natural deity!
Rob @18:
If one defines ‘belief’ as cognitive content held as true, then yes.
But one can certainly disbelieve a proposition, or even withhold belief in a proposition.
So in that sense, it is true that one can disbelieve the proposition that some god exists.
(basically, you’re playing a language-game)
John @22: The sentence you quoted was in response to Marcus’ statement that we can “understand that god doesn’t exist and there is no hell”. I see no ‘withholding belief’ there. Funny how you pull a quote and criticise it completely out of context. Well, it might be funny if you didn’t do it so often.
If someone tells me there is a Ming vase orbiting Alpha Centauri, with no qualification, I would certainly withhold belief in the proposition. In fact, I would consider it an issue unworthy of any consideration* (basically my approach to deism/theism). But I would also certainly not respond with “one can understand that there is no Ming vase orbiting Alpha Centauri”. Perhaps you would?
*That people hold a belief might be worthy of consideration as a social phenomenon, if there are enough of them. And the ways in which other people criticise them might also be worthy of consideration.
“understand that god doesn’t exist and there is no hell”
Yawn. Atheoskeptic dodge #1 is to expect someone making a comment in a blog to be rigorously correct in their language, then attack flaws in their language.
“Understanding” in this context is: belief backed by knowledge, which is different from belief alone. When I say we can understand the universe you’re being a literalist asshole if you choose to interpret that as some kind of statement about a complete understanding. It’s not. We understand some things about the universe, like its age, but not others. We understand evolution, etc. These understandings are not consistent with god belief, unless that god is the universe as it is (which I believe in as a matter of faith if you will). Our understanding of the universe as it appears to be is not consistent with god having an eternal exothermic torture chamber somewhere (where?) so I’m comfortable with saying casually that it does not exist.
That’s a casual statement; I’m not playing pyrrhonian language-fencing games here. (By “here” I mean in casual comments on someone else’s blog) “it appears to me now that the evidence for hell is lacking and not consistent with a theory of hell therefore I am unconvinced there is a hell…” etc. Pyrrhonism’s effect on prose styling is ugly.
Your proposition that my statement was a proposition is also unfounded. You should try embracing the linguistic framework you expect of others before you try holding others to it, you dogmatist.
PS- all knowledge appears to me to be partial, etc. So when I say “understanding is belief backed by knowledge” I am not claiming to be in possession of complete knowledge of the universe, whatever that might be.
Marcus: Your tetchiness has been noted.
You’re describing John’s schtick.
But sure, next time you make a statement like “we can come to understand the nature of X”, I’ll be sure to read it as “we know a few facts about X”. After all, these are just casual statements on a blog, and should thus be seen as more or less equivalent, except occasionally to literalist assholes like me.
Rob Grigjanis:
But why? It’s false.
You’re the one who brought up the alleged vase for consideration. And despite its unworthiness, there’s something that you (“certainly”) regard as worthwhile about maintaining neither belief or disbelief. What good is that supposed to do? It definitely sounds like extra effort for something so unworthy, when you could simply believe it’s false like everybody else does.
I think we can understand just fine that there aren’t any such vases that have wound up in orbit around Alpha Centauri.
We know about the distances involved and what’s required to get from here to there. We know a bit of history, that nobody during the Ming dynasty or since that time has been sending anything there. We know about the properties of such vases, like for example that they are not spaceships capable of putting themselves into orbit around Alpha Centauri. And if you mean something that’s not actually a Ming vase but only looks like the real thing and happens to be there, then we know the chances are ridiculously tiny that such a thing would spontaneously form in that location (rather than being made here and taking a trip like that).
Which sorts of things do we not really understand well enough, in order to even form a mere belief about this?
Heh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
Teapotism delendam!
My family is religious but I guess my mother (who is the bigger influence) was more of the God is everywhere so pray in private and my Dad was more of the these rituals(the pooja or the food to be eaten) need to be faithfully obeyed types so I was never that religious. The exposure to Hinduism was more from television serials(Mahabharata -- one of the all time best Indian serials!) and we lived in a location where there were diverse beliefs so as far as I can remember I was never the devout types. I’d guess the reason I moved away from believing in an interfering when none of my prayers seemed to get answered -over a long period of time -- my Grandmother had an infected foot with Diabetes , my cousin as born with a birth deformity and there is extreme poverty in many areas which sort of led me to why bother with a God who wont do anything -- that whether it existed or not , it wasnt worth worshipping. And that philosophy did a much better job on ethics and morals so there wasn’t much purpose to the simplistic morals expounded in religion (Again , the Mahabharata is a notable exception for me) .
I still enjoy most of the festivals though since most of the Indian festivals , no matter which religion, have such good food! Everyone makes Kheer but you sort of cant beat the kheer you get on Id.
@John morales
So what ? People commit atrocities without believing absurdities -- The above proposition is neither necessary nor sufficient nor causal.
Or really if you hold the above how do you reconcile
a. A majority of the population is religious implies they believe absurdities
b. A tiny minority of them commit atrocities implies what ?
bargearase @#16,
Buddhists are by no means monolithic. As with most religions, most Buddhists in Sri Lanka just use it in their personal lives and are tolerant of others. But there is the minority that is extremely intolerant. They see Sri Lanka as a Buddhist country and that everyone else is an interloper and undeserving of equal status. Because Buddhists are a majority, politicians pander to that kind of sectarian thinking and as a result there are Buddhist clergy and organizations that have become powerful spouting intolerant views.
Deepak Shetty @32: Steven Weinberg was one of my physics idols (not the best word; no heroes, etc, but he came as close as possible). Outside physics? Not so much. He wrote this
But he also wrote this
Regarding the Mahabharata; my only exposure was Peter Brook’s 1989 film, which I found very moving (I saw the six hour TV mini series version, which seemed too short). Have you seen it? One gift it gave me was a beautiful rendering of a song based on the Shvetashvatara Upanishad, composed by Rabindranath Tagore, and sung by Sarmila Roy. Don’t understand a word of it, but it brought me to tears anyway.
Deepak, since you ask:
I already wrote what: epistemic perniciousness. Kook magnetism.
It’s definitely not necessary, but it most certainly is sufficient in many cases.
a: not all religions are absurd; some are merely otiose. But yes, goddists (a subset of religionists) have at least one absurd belief.
b: implies that those who commit such atrocities on the basis of religion wouldn’t have committed them without that religion. Duh. So yeah, it’s causative.
—
Again, you have to recognise the actual sentiment being expressed; basically, if you can believe unwarranted, ridiculous and incoherent stuff in one context, you can certainly believe similarly unwarranted, ridiculous and incoherent stuff in another context.
(For example, why do you imagine evangelicals are Trump’s strongest base?)
@Rob Grigjanis
I dont particularly like this quote -- I’d say that nationalism (and some forms of patriotism ) fits into this phrase much more than religion but essentially unless we have a time machine how would we know what a good religious person might do without the influence of religion ? A good religious person who gives up their religion and continues being good/becomes bad doesn’t prove or disprove anything.
Many normal religious people credit their morals /good deeds /charity to the beliefs that they acquired from their religion (rightly or wrongly) so I don’t know if this is all that clear. I’d agree with the sentiment that good humanist philosophies could probably replace religious morals without most humans noticing but humans can corrupt even good humanist philosophies so who knows.
Unfortunately no , but thanks for the recommendation -- will see it.
Mano @33
So pretty much what I’d expect, more or less the same as every majority everywhere. cheers.
Deepak Shetty @36: I don’t like the quote either. In fact, I think it’s laughably absurd. Sorry I didn’t make that clear.
@John Morales
Thats not what sufficient means in this context though -- i.e. that if you have absurd beliefs you will commit atrocities. Note the word “can” is meaningless -- any of us “can” commit atrocities.
Why do you think that there is only 1 definitive motivating factor ? Its usually much more complex.
Then why is it not more pervasive ?
Other than tribal allegiance ? I’d say its because evangelicals have been convinced about an us v/s them mentality rather than its because of their absurd religious beliefs. In India we can divide ourselves on almost any grounds (Religion/State/Language/Food/Skin Color/Caste/Music) and that difference can and is exploited by politicians -- A lot of this difference is not absurd in the normal sense of the word. In the US it seems to be mainly along religious or skin color lines but I dont think it supports the “If you are convinced that the earth was flooded once and only Noah and his ark survived you can be convinced of anything” as the reason behind the evangelicals love of Trump. If anything Trump goes against their absurd beliefs , no ?
Deepak, you really want to get into a discussion as the merits of religious belief?
That’s precisely what it means; I, for example, cannot commit atrocities on the basis that my religion (e.g. “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”) motivated me, since I’m irreligious.
What made you imagine I thought that?
Again: “… who commit such atrocities on the basis of religion” does not entail that it is the only possible basis. Point being, it is indeed a possible basis, and it happens, and unless you disbelieve those who quite explicitly claim their actions are due to their religion, you have to accept that reality.
Are you kidding? Are you not aware of the history of Christendom? Of Islam? Of the issues in India? Of the issues in PNG?
(Of forced gay conversion therapy?)
Heh. Well, good that you acknowledge their religious beliefs are absurd, and is it not in line with what I wrote?
(Since they already believe absurdities, they don’t find it problematic to believe yet other absurdities)
—
In the spirit of others’ stories, I can’t say I was ever a true believer, except in a totally naive childish way. I was brought up in a rather strict Catholic milieu, and quite thoroughly indoctrinated in the Catholic mythos. So, sure — I prayed before going to bed, I tried hard to think of sins to confess, I tried to avoid behaviour that was “sinful”, that sort of thing. Because I was a little child who knew no better.
At some point (11 or 12 or so) I realised it was just very silly, entirely independently of any outside impetus. Didn’t have a clue about atheism or philosophy or suchlike at that time, either. But, having come to that realisation, I basically just LARPed the religion thing, mainly to avoid the problems that would occur if I were seen to be an (dum dum dummm) unbeliever. Didn’t help that my mom wanted me to become a priest.
#35 John
This statement intrigues me. Do you mean it in the abstract, or do you have an example of a religion containing zero absurdity?
Sure, Holms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism
Ah, a feel-good social club.
🙂
Holms @43:
Sure, one which engages actively in social justice. I like this.
@John morales
So what ? The important thing would be can you commit the same atrocity or not , not the basis on which you are doing it. It does not mean you cannot commit atrocities. if you single out religion you have to prove that it either more motivating or more likely to or something like that -- otherwise whats the point in making that statement ?Someone is motivated by religion others by misogyny, yet others by nationalism, others by xenophobia , others by gender, others by caste, others by race, others by political beliefs.
Or if Some Christians are motivated to do charity because of their religious beliefs and help other people , you, John Morales cant do charity on the basis of your religion as your are irreligious -- what a silly statement to make!
Because you also believe that removing that basis means that, that atrocity would not be committed. Take a religious, xenophobic, ant-immmigrant , racist nazi. You might be able to reasonably say their religious beliefs formed the basis for a crime they committed. But it does not follow that if you took away that belief they wouldnt commit the same crime -- nor is there any way to prove or disprove and its also hard to state what caused what.
Oh I do. But I also do not disbelieve those who explicitly claims their good actions are due to their religion.
Don’t answer the question you want to answer. There are a billion plus Indians. A majority are religious (= they have absurd beliefs) Why are there atrocities only committed by a few ? such that if you take a percentage its fractional. This is inspite of the fact that quite a few more have genuine animosity towards the other.
No its not. Many of Trump supporters have absurd beliefs but that is not what is driving them to Trump (atleast in my opinion)
Also you seem to be indulging in the idea that If one can have one absurd belief , one can believe anything which is demonstrably false.
Take Sam Harris v/s lets say P. Z Myers -- Myers believes that Harris and his fans have some absurd beliefs , no ? Does that mean we can assume that Harris will turn religious at some point in time (you can flip this example around if you wish).
Or take a Christian -- they have some absurd beliefs , does it mean its child play to get them to become Muslim or Hindu ?
Deepak, I think we’ve reached that point where we are going in circles, so I shall stop henceforth.
Interesting rationalisation.
So… smoking can lead to lung cancer, but the important thing would be that one can get lung cancer without smoking.
Therefore, for you, smoking is irrelevant in the context of lung cancer, right?
Again: that atrocity would not be committed on that basis.
Well, there you go.
You too believe people commit atrocities on the basis of their religion, at least when they claim to do so. So why you think you’re disputing me on that point is open to speculation.
The answer I provided was to your question, which is what I wanted to answer.
So the strong correlation is purely a coincidence, in your estimation. OK.
This is the idea I indulge: “basically, if you can believe unwarranted, ridiculous and incoherent stuff in one context, you can certainly believe similarly unwarranted, ridiculous and incoherent stuff in another context.”
(I don’t see how that is in any way controversial; having done so, one perforce has a proven and demonstrable capacity for so doing)
John @47:
Hmm. I think knowingly living an unsustainable life style while demonstrating no sense of urgency* would certainly qualify. And that would certainly cover most folk in the West, most atheists included (me too!). None of us can be trusted!
*Except for concerned blog comments, perhaps.
@John Morales
Not what I said. if there are multiple causes of lung cancer including smoking and the patient has all those multiple causes and those causes also have inter-dependencies with each other then smoking may be a basis of lung cancer for that patient but taking away that basis may not take away the lung cancer (or it could , but you cant know it). But yeah repeating what I said.
I believe there is some truth when the religious people claim religion as their inspiration for their atrocities. But I also believe its not the whole truth. There is some nuance and greyness too. (Ditto for their good)
If it was Mike pence , the evangelicals would vote for him. If it was Ted Cruz the evangelicals would vote for Ted. They’ll vote for whoever has an R against their name which is not what I’m assuming you intend to mean by absurd belief.
You ,our blog host or I “can” believe in unwarranted, ridiculous and incoherent stuff without needing to have believe in any other incoherent stuff -- Anyone “can”- therefore the first part is unnecessary if thats all you want to say. If you want to make the slightly stronger claim that one is more likely to believe in unwarranted, ridiculous and incoherent stuff if they already believe in similar such stuff then you are already aware of Russells teapot so youll have to do better than “I have an idea”
How does the person get the first incoherent belief? Its not that your idea is controversial but that its not straight forward as you want to make it out to be. Else the following should be true -- If a person believes everything the Bible says about Jesus then its easy for them to believe everything the Quran says about Mohammed. Except they dont.
Yeah but circles so I’ll stop too.
#45 Rob
My comment was too brief for what I was thinking, and so it looks like I was scoffing at the group. I wasn’t, I was scoffing at the idea that it is a religion.
Holms @50: Huh. It’s a direct descendant of more doctrinally-bound traditions, so I have no problem if they want to call themselves a religion, whether or not they have a specific creed. I’d love to see other religions move in their direction.
Agreed, I think all religions would be greatly improved by losing the religious element.
Mr Singham confesses to be religious, just that the religion is atheism.
.
Mr Singham’s atheism is sterile in the area of metaphysics.
.
Aristotle coined the word “metaphysics” to denote subjects that are beyond the realm of physics.
.
After 2500 years the tools of physics have made no inroads into metaphysics.
.
Mr Singham seems to be looking for meaning, purpose of his life; however physics cannot provide meaning or purpose.
.
Mr Singham writes: “I had to make a choice between science and religion, …”. False choice. Many productive scientists are religious. If anything religion complements science: science deals with physics and religion deals with metaphysics.