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.
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.
