|
Comment on this article |
View comments |
Email this Article
|
|
News :: Miscellaneous |
|
The Irresponsibility of Religion |
Current rating: 0 |
by Thomas Ulatowski
Email: tulat (nospam) netzero.com (unverified!)
Phone: 217-367-8960
Address: 310 greenview Dr., Urbana, IL 61801 |
08 Feb 2002
Modified: 12 Feb 2002 |
|
Criticism of religion and a plan for peace |
The Irresponsibility of Religion
by Thomas Ulatowski
Most parts of the world have a traditionally predominant religion; and, even in America, there still is a correlation between an individual's religion and his or her parents' religion. If most people aren't actually selecting their own religion, obviously they can't be choosing it responsibly.
Religious people often respond to this criticism with the following:
All the major religions should be
respected equally. It's just easier
to adopt a familiar religion; the
fact that my parents taught it to
me as a child is irrelevant.
This line of thought certainly highlights the dangers of the dogmatic mind. The religious wars between Catholics and Protestants, the hundreds of years of crusades and jihads, the Spanish Inquisition, and the execution of heretics all clearly show that religions have encouraged their members to kill those with different religions. If it's true that religions should be respected equally then millions of people were murdered for no reason whatsoever! On the other hand, if religions are considered unequal then most religious people must be irresponsible for not conscientiously choosing their religion.
For their lack of scientific effort in selecting their religion, religious people often fall back on this additional excuse:
Religious convictions are simply a
choice because you can't prove
anything about matters of faith.
My primary objective is to show that this excuse is the most reckless idea of all time. I will show that it is irresponsible to believe any proposition without sufficient reason, and that unjustified, religious beliefs commonly contribute to the rationalization of injustices, including the most barbaric of atrocities.
I will consider three questions: 1. Can't we just know that there is a good God? 2. What about the miracles? 3. Can we rely on hearsay from the spirit world?
Can't we just know that there is a good God?
When religious people see something wonderful like a new baby or a picture of the Earth from space, they sometimes respond along these lines:
Awesome! How could this have happened by chance? Only the good Lord could have created something so beautiful (or spectacular) with complexity beyond our comprehension.
This reasoning is loaded with assumptions:
1. Why don't people from every culture automatically infer the existence of the same kind of God?
2. What if the universe always existed in some form or another?
3. If it did all happen by chance, what precisely would have to be different? How would the sunset have to look? And how would babies have to look?
4. Why is the single God-creator automatically considered super-good and all-powerful, yet somehow in need of our attention?
5. What if there were several co-creators who (with there need for attention) became jealous, quarreled over creative differences, and killed each other off?
Giving up on abstract proof, many people fall back to the position that faith must be OK because you can't prove that there isn't a God. However, it is also impossible to prove the falsity of many ridiculous ideas such as the following:
1. Although they were rare, there were polka-dotted Mammoths with many different colored polka dots, but the polka dots were under the fur.
2. Sometime after January 19, 2038, it will be easy to show that God is a woman and that She has one brown eye, one blue eye, and one eye of another color.
3. I am possessed by at least 76 spirits, and they all are extremely cool.
These silly examples show that the impossibility of proving the falsity of a belief does not make the belief respectable, or even plausible. It is infantile to embrace a pleasing belief simply because it makes you feel proud or gives meaning to your life. Adult responsibility requires a demand for logical judgments which are based on sufficient and accurate information. When you don't know something, it is conscientious to withhold judgment, and not to presume you know.
Patience is a virtue, especially for a scientist who wants to keep an open mind. On the other extreme, Fascists believe that they are superior to other people. This belief makes them feel proud and gives meaning to their lives. To them even World War II did not prove that their supremacist belief is wrong--as recently as 1999, a neo-Nazi party received 27% of the parliamentary vote in Austria. Perhaps we cannot prove that the Fascist's supremacist belief is false; however, we can conclude that it is grotesque when every reason that they give in support of their belief is patently absurd.
What about the miracles?
In general, the idea of "divine revelation" produces this paradox. Either the Lord is not all-powerful because he was incapable of making himself clear regarding the existence of one true religion, or most of the world's population is too defective to recognize God's clear message. Therefore, religions that believe in a revelation by an all-powerful, and loving God must instill a prejudice against nonbelievers.
The historical evidence for religion is strikingly unjust, provincial, and prejudiced. What could be more unjust than an arbitrarily chosen people? What could be more provincial than a Mecca in the middle of the desert? The fact is that the founders of all the major religions acted as though their continent was the center of civilization, or possibly they thought that the people who lived in the rest of the world weren't important enough to hear their message or to see their miracles. For example, Jesus didn't bother to visit the major centers of civilization and population. According to Christian beliefs, you only get one life, that is, one chance to worship God and go to heaven. Therefore, Jesus' life shows that he was prejudiced against people living outside his area.
So-called "divine revelation" is actually so ridiculous that it is necessary for believers to disregard important facts:
1. Jesus said several times that his second coming would occur before the death of all the people who were living at his time.
2. Jesus condoned slavery.
3. Jesus condemned wealth, and lived as a communist with the apostles.
If "Christian" means follower of Jesus, then it appears that almost no one is even trying to be a Christian. An impossible creed cannot be translated into reality; therefore, Christianity requires neurotic repression, guilt, and frustration; and it must discourage a rational approach to life, ethics, and political relations.
Can we rely on hearsay from the spirit world?
Listed below are some major social reforms which I compiled to help determine the influence of religion. Consider whether the institution of religion has helped or hindered your favorite causes.
Abolition of Child Labor
Abolition of Slavery
Abolition of Torture and Inhumane Punishment
Abolition of Colonialism
Abolition of War
Protecting Civil Rights
Protecting Women's Rights
Protecting the Environment
Suppression of Poverty
Supporting Universal Education
Elimination of Preventable Diseases
Abolition of Oppressive Governments
There is no doubt that religions de-emphasize the significance of, so-called, "worldly concerns" like the listed social reform movements. In fact, religious doctrine never even mentions most of these reforms. There are some exceptions. On the plus side, churches have traditionally advocated the mitigation of poverty, some sects are against war, and some individual ministers have been civil rights leaders. But, on the negative side, most religions have supported the Divine Right of kings, and many have advocated the oppression of women, and too many still do. However, in general, most religions have done almost nothing to assist any of the great social movements, and it is this clear lack of support for undeniably good causes that needs to be exposed.
Why do our (self-proclaimed) moral authorities provide such inept leadership? For anyone to improve, the first thing that he, or she must do is accept that there is a problem; therefore, the worst thing someone can do is to invent an excuse to make the problem seem unworthy of concern. Unfortunately, the proponents of each religion must presume that their teaching is sufficient and justified because they proclaim that their God (or founder) is all-good and that His Holy Word is the final word on the subject of what is right. This religious presumption is clearly false. For example, today the overwhelming consensus is that we should care about universal education, world peace, ending child exploitation, and many other important causes. Consequently, any religion that failed to mention these obligations can't possibly be the final word about morality. Obviously, clerics can't teach an up-to-date understanding of morality while maintaining their pretense that they are the special representatives of an all-perfect God who long ago told us everything we need to know about morality.
The religious presumption is particularly harmful because it keeps believers from recognizing their obligation to consider moral issues which were omitted from their religion's dogma. For example, there is no commandment prohibiting unjust war; consequently, the supporters of the World-War-II-era dictators were not considered personally responsible even though they encouraged several unjust wars. As a result, today there are more dictators, unjust wars, genocides, and atrocities; and there is no reason not to expect World-War-III sometime this century.
The religious presumption accustoms the religious to a cop-out attitude. They shirk their responsibility to personally examine moral issues while rationalizing that an infallible God has already told them all of their obligations. This dogmatic attitude has made the religious susceptible to the ideologies of ruthless dictators to the extent that military chaplains have been used to facilitate even the most unjust and genocidal of wars.
Religion thoroughly prepares believers for dictators. In the name of religion, children are inculcated with beliefs. Then dogmatic authorities tell them that it is immoral to ever question these beliefs. In addition, the children are repeatedly told that their culture's greatest and most intelligent leaders believed strongly in the Lord and humbled themselves before Him. The result of all this is that most believers never feel a personal responsibility to determine their obligations. Instead of learning to follow the dictates of their own conscience, they are conditioned to follow someone else's dictates.
Besides inspiring a dogmatic mentality, religions facilitate war by denying the importance of this life. Consider that it is probably impossible to make up a more pleasing myth about death that the religious belief that death is really just the beginning of an everlasting life of total bliss. Consequently, for true believers on a crusade or on a jihad, it's great to be a soldier, dead or alive. Therefore, it is no wonder that the religions which promised a most exquisite, and eternal afterlife were the ones most spread by conquering armies.
What ultimately matters to religious people is their place in the next world which is determined by their personal relationship with God; consequently, this world and the people in it are relatively less important to them, and believers have wreaked incredible carnage throughout history.
1. Thousands of so-called heretics and witches were burned at the stake.
2. In the Spanish Inquisition, thousands of people were tortured to death in the name of religion.
3. Christian Crusaders plundered the holy land for centuries.
4. During the Protestant Reformation millions of civilians were slaughtered. The Thirty Years War, 1618-1648, was particularly brutal.
5. There were hundreds of years of European colonial conquests with widespread genocide, exploitation and slavery, but there were no significant protests by any Western religious leaders.
6. Today, Pope Pius XII (the World-War-Two Pope) is actually being considered for sainthood, even though he gave no significant argument as the Fascists gained power at his doorstep.
7. Millions of Christians followed Hitler after he explicitly advocated continuous, unjust warfare.
The bizarre harshness of holy wars, virgin sacrifice, and witch and heretic burning shows that the religious have regarded injustice in this world as insignificant.
When Jesus said, "Do onto your neighbor as you would have him do onto you," most Christians think that this was a divine teaching and that it adds veracity to their opinion that Jesus was the Lord. This again illustrates how irrational and prejudiced the religious can be. As it turns out, the Golden Rule was previously a tenet in many religions and philosophies. Before Jesus, it was already central to Confucianism, Buddhism, and Hinduism; and the Greek philosopher, Plato, also taught the Golden Rule about four hundred years before Jesus. So, if Jesus was divinely inspired, so were several other men. Furthermore, there is the grievous problem that both Plato and Jesus condoned slavery. Clearly, a moral rule means nothing when someone can arbitrarily choose when or to whom it applies. Religions cannot provide an adequate conception of morality because they represent and condone provincialism and prejudice. In addition, considering religion's history of support for the Divine Right of kings, it is absurd to suggest that religion is capable of supporting our democratic ideals, such as, equal rights and equal justice. Equality wasn't popularized by any religion--it was popularized by proponents of Democracy during the Age of Enlightenment.
In America, we live by the principle that all citizens are equal under the law, and we know the exact meaning of the words "just" and "fair." Although it may be extremely difficult to determine what is right in complex situations, the principle is simple to understand: any moral rule must be applied consistently to everyone in the same situation. In other words, injustice always requires a choice to treat people differently without sufficient reason. No matter how you define it, sin is essentially selfish behavior, and selfishness can be seen as a kind of prejudice that requires a lack of regard for responsible thought.
If we want to be fair, we must be objective. If we want to be objective, we must give up our prejudices. The only way to minimize the effects of lies and nonsense is to acknowledge our responsibility to pursue logical judgments that are based on sufficient and accurate information. Consequently, the virtues of conscientious, and prudent discretion are acclaimed in every culture:
Discretion makes the difference
between "There he goes," and
"Here he lies." American saying
"Caution is thinking today and
speaking tomorrow." Henry G. Bohn
"Wisdom is keeping a sense of the
fallibility of all our views and
opinions." Gerald Brenan
"Reason is the only faculty we
have wherewith to judge concerning
anything, even revelation itself."
Joseph Butler
"Education is not an object, but a
method." Gilbert Keith Chesterton
"Reason is the light and lamp of
life." Cicero
"When you know a thing, to hold
that you know it, and when you do
not know it, to admit that you do
not know--this is true knowledge."
Confucius
"Be sure that you are right, then
go write ahead." Davy Crockett,
his speech-writer, or Walt Disney
"Zeal without knowledge is the
sister of folly." John Davies
"He who will not reason is a
bigot." William Drummond
"We shall require a substantially
new manner of thinking if mankind
is to survive." Albert Einstein
"Thought is the only conceivable
prosperity that can come to us."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Prudence is the greatest good...
from it spring all the other
virtues." Epicurus
"Education is being able to
differentiate between what you
do know and what you don't."
William Feather
"Man is wise only in search of
wisdom; when he imagines he has
attained it, he is a fool."
Solomon Ibn Gabirol
"Caution is the eldest child of
wisdom." Victor Hugo
"Agnosticism simply means that a
man shall not say he knows or
believes that for which he has
no grounds for professing to
believe." T. H. Huxley
"‘Learn what is true in order to
do what is right,' is the summery
of duty." T. H. Huxley
"Reason is true religion."
Morris Joseph
"Prudence is the first thing to
desert the wretched." Ovid
"It is not the possession of
knowledge, of irrefutable truths,
that constitutes the man of
science, but the disinterested,
incessant search for truth."
Karl Popper
"So long as men are not trained to
withhold judgment in the absence of
evidence, they will be led astray
by cocksure prophets, and it is
likely that their leaders will be
either ignorant fanatics or
dishonest charlatans. To endure
uncertainty is difficult, but so
are most of the other virtues."
Bertrand Russell
Without sound reasoning we would have no self-control, and no freedom. In addition, without a mutual respect for sound reasoning, there is no nonviolent means to resolve disagreements between opponents with divergent faiths.
It is always our responsibility to be careful about important decisions because there can never be an excuse for jumping to a conclusion. It's impossible to argue against the importance of careful reasoning because it is impossible to argue without acknowledging that good reasons are important.
Religion is a prejudice which divides Mankind for no good reason. After millennia of conquest, and proselytization, there is nothing resembling a religious consensus because no religion has distinguished itself. There is no convincing message because there is no perfect, or all-good message, there certainly is no message that was revealed fairly, and there isn't even a message that stands out as most plausible, or non-contradictory. Either there is some clearly correct religion, or, if there are any good, and Almighty Gods, the conclusion must be that They have left it up to us to figure out how to live together, and They would have to approve of anyone who does the best that he, or she knows how to do.
It is contradictory to believe that a just, and loving God would persecute innocent people for not believing an unproven religion. This is the irrational view of oppressors, like the Taliban, and Osama bin Laden, who, by necessity, must choose irrational means to spread their insane message. They actually believe that they are helping the Almighty to get His All-perfect message out, and they believe that their God created hell for people who disagree with them.
Responsibility requires reacting to what we know; responsibility to an unknown, or imaginary reality is responsibility to nothing. By all known accounts, we learn how to learn in this three-dimensional world. This is where we learn the language that we use to think. Therefore, it is impossible to be more familiar with any other reality.
It is a relatively harmless thing to hope that there is a good God, and that He, or She will miraculously make everything come out nice in the end. But our actual human responsibilities must be determined by what we know, and there is never an excuse to look away from what we know most certainly.
Unfortunately, in order to maintain their dogmatic pretensions, religious professionals encourage their followers to endorse unjustified beliefs on faith. This denial of the importance of rational self-control is the epitome of irresponsibility.
By accepting religious tenants on faith, religious followers surrender their personal integrity. They become accustomed to accepting decrees, and to shirking their responsibility to think for themselves about moral issues. Since religious adherents are not personally deciding moral questions, they see no reason to sensitize themselves to new issues. All of this makes it possible for know-it-alls like Hitler, Milosevic, and bin Laden to manipulate the gullible adherents; and it should be no great surprise that religious believers are repeatedly proven to be susceptible to heartless, and ridiculous political ideology.
The God in the Bible was unjust, provincial, and prejudiced. There is no excuse--you can't say that God works in mysterious ways without first knowing that there is a God. Moreover, if God really is so mysterious then there is a far worse problem: if your God condones child exploitation, dictators, torture, slavery, prejudice, and war, then isn't it more consistent to think that your religion was really started by a tricky devil who was claiming to be a good God in an attempt to make people disregard their fellow humans by tempting them into a greedy pursuit of a blissful afterlife? Religions have failed to prove that their God even exists; how can they possibly prove that He isn't a tricky devil--and what could be less responsible than accidently worshiping a tricky devil?
To end war, we need to be more responsible. We need to encourage democracy--people everywhere must be taught to demand responsive, effective, efficient, and honest political representation; and they must be taught to be conscientiously vigilant of their government's compliance with these demands. This should force governments to act more responsibly. Then responsible governments should enact all of the necessary reforms, and war should become ridiculous, like human sacrifice, and Holy Crusades.
|
Comments
|
This guy has it right |
by Bozo D Gump
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
08 Feb 2002
|
|
I agree with what the author says here. He makes his case well. We need to hear more from him. |
|
See you soon. |
by Lucifer
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
12 Feb 2002
|
Great job Tom. Be seeing you again, maybe sooner than you think.
Lucifer |
|
