Religious Empathy, Scientific Rigor

I am not religious, and aside from childhood belief in Santa Claus, I do not think I ever have been.  What does that mean, though?  An NPR piece quoted Alan de Botton as seeing religion as a vehicle to "satisfy our human need for connection, ritual and transcendence."  If religion is that vehicle, and not the belief itself, I still do not count myself among the religious.  However, I tend to think of religion as belief.  What is ritual without belief that it is meaningful?  What does it matter if the belief is in a deity, state of mind, or even lack thereof?  Religion as ritual or belief is not for me.

In my past, I have judged the religious harshly.  Jim Jeffers, in as offensive language possible, argues that atheists should be nice - after all, what do they care if they lie to a priest?  I think part of the harsh treatment of the religious, for me, was the perception that they judged me harshly.  While I may have questioned the basic intelligence of believing over questioning, I was offended that they would pass judgement on me, and condemn me to damnation, without consideration of me as a person.  In the end, mostly those feelings just left me angry and jaded.  It took years to learn to be nice, but empathy was quicker to come.

Interestingly, I began empathizing with the religious before I began accepting them kindly.  I recall a conversation with my university friend, Egypt, about microprocessors.  I still do not, for lack of effort, truly understand how a processor "decides" if two voltages are the same or different (or whatever, I apologize for my naivete).  At the heart of my lack of understanding, I see a question.  I think in moments like this, in religion, one sees god.  Simply put, I see questions, and the religious see answers.  I can empathize with that vision of the world, even if it is not quite the religious experience that others have.

Just because I found the empathy, I did not have the courage to not judge those who I thought were judging me.  I will not say I have found all of the courage to be kind to people of differing ideas all of the time, but I am getting better, because I really do not care what "hell" they believe I will suffer in (I don't think I will).

Part of what helped me understand that I did not need to judge the religious is that I worked with a couple of religious people (of varying religions), and how religious they were did not matter in how they treated me and others.  Some believers were kind, and others were not.  Some were judgmental, others were not, just like everyone else.  I worked, and lived in a tent, with a man named Scott, who described himself as, "bananas for Jesus."  In many ways, that was the biggest release, I did not have to judge Scott, he judged himself, and we accepted each other for who we were.

I imagine that there would be some irreconcilable differences in the way Scott and I perceive many issues.  I was freshly divorced at the time, and trying desperately to find myself, and he had found himself during a personal crisis, decades before, in religion.  It was an interesting perspective to hear someone talk about how they navigated their life, rather than having someone tell me how I should navigate mine.  In fact, the only time I ever heard Scott come close to telling me that religion was better than non-religion was when he stated that, in his experience, happy old people have two things, children and God.

I have no interest in having either of those two things, and perhaps that means I face unhappiness in my old age.  I have faced unhappiness at other stages of my life, and fear of more unhappiness does not make me desire to fill myself with belief to escape it.  When I am filled with feelings of sadness or loneliness, sometimes I want to have a dear friend there to comfort me, but generally, I tend to let it wash over me, maybe like what Lois CK thinks more people should do.

I have gone years without thinking of myself as a "happy person," and to think of an omnipotent being at the helm of fate does not help.  First, if I were to accept many religions, I would need to acknowledge that in being a good person, I would be rewarded with eternal life in paradise.  For the most part, my life has been quite rich, and I doubt that paradise for many disadvantaged people would look much different.  So if I wallow in sadness during 75 years in "paradise," eternity seems a little too long.  Second, I doubt I can feel comfort from knowing that someone is choosing for me to experience these things.  I understand the argument that in order for me to be here, now, I needed those experiences.  While that is true, to say that suffering is part of a planned path to enlightenment, makes the almighty seem a little less clever than what the creator of the universe deserves.

So, no matter how I approach it, I find that religion is not for me.  That is to say, believing in religion, or not believing in religion.  Questions are for me.  This leaves me solidly agnostic, which I have argued is the truest path for the religious (believers, deity or lack thereof notwithstanding).  That said, how one spends their Sundays does not change how that person should be treated by me.

Or does it?  I was talking to a neighbor the other night who said, "I used to think it was treat others how you want to be treated, but it isn't.  It is treat others how they want to be treated."  Obviously, he is right, and what one believes should have an affect on how I treat them.  Of course, I cannot really know the customs and desires of everyone I meet, but I can probably come close by using "emotional intelligence."

That, to me, is really the heart of religion.  Religion is belief that governs our emotional response.  When we "know" something, very rarely is emotion the biggest factor in governing our reaction.  When we encounter the unknown, we are guided by emotions, morality, rituals, etc.  In this way, science, with a strict method (ritual) that governs how one increases their understanding of the world is approaching belief.  For some, it is.  There are many who seem convinced that science will eventually answer every question, but many questions are inherently unanswerable.  This sets the limit of science, it can only answer answerable questions.

A problem in society is that science is, alarmingly, seen as competing with belief.  When it is observed in this way, people seem to want to fight against it.  The "due unto others" axioms of religion are stopping life saving care of women, stopping women's rights discovered through science, and barring science education in schools.  It is shocking what happens when people feel like they are being judged!

If some parents interpret teaching science as judgement, and some interpret not teaching it as judgement, society needs to reach some understanding on what knowledge is needed to advance ourselves.  The other day I was out for a run.  The road from the house where I am living has a gate.  It is low, maybe 30 inches high at the center, and 36 inches at the sides.  As I had done countless times before, I sprinted to pull ahead of my friend, and leapt, kicking my left foot high and forward.  Maybe I was too late in jumping, or maybe I just did not jump high enough.  Either way, I felt my toe catch on the gate, then I was falling, then hitting the ground.  My friend watched from behind, horrified, as I crashed to the ground.  For me, most of what happens next is blurry, I remember looking at my bloody hands and trying to catch my breath.  I remember standing up, and trying to walk it off, then laying back down worried I was going to faint.  I remember wanting a second opinion on how badly hurt I was, and when I decided to continue the run, I was surprised that I had managed to cross the gate back towards the house before laying back down.  That night, I covered my oozing wounds with gauze, wrapped my stiff, swollen, painful wrists in elastic bandages, and lay down to sleep.  After what felt like eternity of feeling pain from the pressure of the blankets on my wrists, ribs, hip, and shoulder, I struggled out of bed and took ibuprofen (something I do less than annually).

My fall relates to religion because while seeking the advice (and x-rays) of a physician was considered, seeking the healing powers of a priest was not.  Everything I did in response to an injury was motivated by my knowledge of medical sciences (and stubbornness to admit when I'm hurt).  While I am sure that many religious people would have said a little prayer in addition to the treatment I sought, I doubt many would have headed for the church.

It is generally held that medicine (science) helps in tangible ways in this situation.  While most people do not think about the scientists in a lab working on better gauze pads, drugs, and treatments, when they take ibuprofen after a fall, they owe their comfort to those scientists.  Scientists, who may have believed in a religion, but had an understanding of math, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and evolution.  Advancements in knowledge of medical sciences depends upon high school students learning scientific theories and hypotheses that will be built upon in university and graduate or professional school.

Maybe the world was created by a creator, that is an unanswerable question, but the world, created or not, when analyzed scientifically has attributes, like evolution, that help our understanding of how to treat maladies.  This is where my empathy fails me with the religious, or at least the extremely religious.  I can accept that the way we see the world is different.  I can accept that some religions pass judgement on me for not believing in them.  I cannot accept that religion should replace science, where science has a proven track record of improving quality of life, and religion does not.

I do not wish to belabor the point, but I suppose that is what I am going to do.  When looking for mineral wealth, one hires a geologist.  When creating medical imaging devices, better cell phones, and faster computers, one hires a physicist.  When creating more powerful computers or software, one seeks computer scientists and engineers.  When building cars, buildings, and infrastructure, society turns to engineers.  Drugs are created by chemists and pharmacists.  Medical treatments are developed by biologists and physicians.  Mental health issues are addressed by psychologists, as are new treatments for those conditions.  In all these things science and math are the foundation.  Some, when in need of emotional comfort and moral guidance will turn to religion, but the limitations of what this thinking can accomplish is self-evident in the absence of theology in the STEM fields.

In essence, I no longer feel the need to judge the religious harshly - they are people just like the non-religious.  I think many in religious circles could benefit a fair bit by leaving judgement to their creators, but more importantly, I think they will continue to benefit by keeping parable in the church, and science in the classroom.

Political Extremism

Reports of proto-genocide in South Sudan, Al Qaeda fighters creating the makings of civil war, and Tea Party factions pulling apart the fabric of the Republican party bring my attention to the repercussions of extreme factions given too much power.  In South Sudan, ethnic tensions lie along political lines, and the barely held peace is undone.  Countrymen are killing countrymen based on ethnicity and politics.  In Iraq, armed men shout about defending the people from the government, while limiting the rights of people, particularly women.  In the US, the Tea Party (and Christian extremists) is destabilizing the Republican Party, and in many ways the country as a whole, by insisting on access to military weapons, limiting the access of women to modern medicine, and eroding educational standards.  While it is anathema to constructive discourse to vilify those with opposing views by rash comparison to notorious groups, the politics and rhetoric of extremism forms a pattern that cannot be dealt with logically.  It seems increasingly so that there is shockingly little difference between the political tactics of the Tea Party and extremists like Al Qaeda.

The Tea Party has no official religion, but certainly Christianity is to the Tea Party what Islam is to Al Qaeda.  One philosophy unites the members of each group, and the more extreme the interpretation of their respective holy texts, the tighter the bond.  I acknowledge that there may be many Tea Party members who regard themselves as non-fundamentalists, but when the moral compass of an organization aligns to the guidance of hate-filled religious teachers of the Jerry Falwell kind, an exclusive fundamentalism reveals itself at the heart of the organization.  This type of religious zeal lends itself to the xenophobia that these extremist groups rely upon to perpetuate their agenda.

In Iraq, Al Qaeda fighters align themselves with the religious sect that is not in power.  In South Sudan, ethnicity fuels the political hate.  The xenophobia that fuels these conflicts is key: keep the good life for us, not them, is the sentiment.  In the United States, the propaganda of the extreme right dictate the closing of borders and limiting the abilities of immigrants and foreigners to enjoy the American Dream.  Admittedly, new immigrants have been excluded from the American Dream by the immigrants of decades past.  However, when Facebook memes that tout closing borders are proliferated by those who fail to consider the patriotic diversity that drives their nation, the extremism of the Tea Party is advanced by thoughtless repetition. Unfortunately, Tea Party xenophobia does not stop at policy, but extends to violence.

When a Wisconsin Sikh temple was the target of a mass shooting, most Americans were outraged.  Paul Ryan sponsored a house bill that condemned the acts.  Americans are quick to condemn violence, but in the matter of preventing violence, the Tea Party lacks enthusiasm.  Ryan’s bill merely sought to condemn the act, not limit access to the legally-purchased, 19-round ammunition magazines that were used to kill the Sikhs and shoot a responding police officer 15 times.  The Tea Party is not a white supremacist organization, but it can be accused of using xenophobia on the national political spectrum to encourage xenophobia in smaller, more extreme communities.  Given the hate crimes perpetrated by well-armed xenophobes in the United States, is it unreasonable to think that should a second civil war ever begin, that Muslims, Latinos, Blacks, the LGBT community, or minority immigrant communities would be some of the first to be targeted?  Would that be American genocide?

No political movement is free from violence.  Governments of the extreme left have committed heinous atrocities along with their extreme right brethren.  "Grassroots" political organizations, left and right, have committed acts of violence.  Yet, the modern extreme right, including incarnations that preceded or feed off the Tea Party movement have committed some of the most striking acts of American terrorism.  In 1995 the Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma City was bombed by those sympathetic to the Militia Movement.  While the Militia Movement is not the Tea Party, Timothy McVeigh's political view certainly sound at home among those of the Tea Party.  Consider these quotes compiled on Wikipedia:

"Taxes are a joke. Regardless of what a political candidate "promises," they will increase. More taxes are always the answer to government mismanagement."

"The government is afraid of the guns people have because they have to have control of the people at all times. Once you take away the guns, you can do anything to the people. You give them an inch and they take a mile. I believe we are slowly turning into a socialist government. The government is continually growing bigger and more powerful and the people need to prepare to defend themselves against government control."

Mistrust of government, the desire for low taxes, and the idea of gun-rights are not in themselves vehicles of terrorism.  However, when combined with xenophobia, the "government," and the "socialists" (liberals?) become them, the enemy.  “The right to bear arms,” whatever that legally means, provides extremists a way to hide their desire to destabilize society behind a veil of constitutional legitimacy.  Literal interpretations of the constitution equate military weapons to black powder muskets, a weapon with limited applications in mass shootings.  A nation armed with tools (e.g., hunting rifles), may suffer heart-wrenching gun violence, but will not face the destabilizing, daily terror of military weapons in the hands of the disaffected.

This is not a conspiracy.  Violence is not a plan being delivered by a secret movement.  Violence is the result of mass-produced, widely available weapons.  The concept that the availability of weapons produces violence is not new, nor secular.  In the Bible, Isaiah 2:3-4 encourages swords to plowshares, spears to pruning hooks, and discourages war.  The Bible passage, like the Second Amendment, is not entirely clear in its fullest meaning, but tools for farming seem more important than tools for defense.  In the Bill of Rights, what threat is perceived that requires defense?  Is it foreign nations?  The central government?  Each other?  With widely available weapons, threats are shrouded by irrational fears.  Daily gun violence is terrorism inflicted on the American public by gun lobbyists to justify more guns.  The central government’s mission to provide medical care to the sick, the poor, and the meek is a perceived threat that should be met with, according to some associated with the Tea Party, a military coup.  Yet, a military coup is probably the threat James Madison envisioned coming from the central government when he penned the Second Amendment, as the constitution specifically forbids the presence of a standing army.  With the current (unconstitutional) military being the largest part of government, and more powerful than something like the next ten most powerful militaries combined, the threat of a foreign power is moot.  In essence, it seems that the Second Amendment is held in greater esteem than the Bible to defend against the gun violence that the defense of the Second Amendment has created!

The violence perpetuated by the extreme right is not a Tea Party tradition, but is condoned by their rhetoric and actions.  When Sarah Palin used a political graphic that used gun scope cross hairs to identify democrat-held districts, she was condoning violence, though not intentionally.  When Alaskan separatists (to potentially include Todd Palin) argue for the right to own military-style weapons, they are, inadvertently, condoning violence against the government.  It was, in fact, separatism over states’ rights that led to the civil war (which was also drawn along racial lines).  Violence, then, is tied to Tea Party thinking; this includes mass shootings that kill children.

Real violence spilling from rhetoric is a tragedy that is preventable.  First, though, we must answer a question.  Where and how does rhetoric escalate, or not, to violence?  In a New York Times magazine piece, it was implied that John McCain is tired of discussing the selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate.  That political move, however misguided, may have been the point where the Tea Party seceded from the Republican Party.  It legitimized the extremist fringe on the national scale.  I, like McCain, am tired of talking about Palin, but I think that was a pivotal point that should be understood.  If we can understand an event that put extremists in a position of power in the country, can we understand the circumstances that will legitimate violence and war as a political party?

I am not proposing that we currently sit on the eve of war.  Instead, I am proposing that the Tea Party, in an uniquely American way, represents much of the extremism seen in Al Qaeda, and that fuels conflicts of genocide.  I am proposing that we need to analyze and understand when violent rhetoric becomes violence.  How do we know that when Charlton Heston said, "...from my cold dead hands," it was not a call to arms for felons barred from owning weapons?  We learn these things through law enforcement actions.  After the shooting in Newtown, Wayne LaPierre called for a vast increase in the size of government to protect schools from the guns that his organization defend.  It is through increasing the size of government, and decreasing liberty, that Americans seek to live with military weapons in their daily lives.  To my mind, the NSA spying on telephones is the product of Americans making access to deadly weapons a “right” of greater importance than food for hungry children (e.g., reducing funding for food stamps).

Unfortunately, the NSA was caught protecting us from ourselves, and the Tea Party is responding with vehement small government rhetoric, pitting the citizen against the government: us versus them.  Meanwhile, a rebel in Fallujah takes the stage to proclaim his protection of Iraqis from their government.