I personally am tired of being constantly told to compromise my Christian values to accommodate others. These beliefs I will never compromise and you should not either.
-- Posted at the We the People (a.k.a. I Am Curious Theocrat) blog
A stubborn unwillingness to compromise on questions that have tended to result historically in people cutting each other’s throats (or worse) in the name of their own unknowable “god” strikes me as mightily totalitarian in nature.
Then again, I’m just one of those contrarian communistic freethinking threats to human decency … and damned proud of it.
Certainly I’m not the first person to place a tattered bookmark in my cherished copy of Christopher Hitchens’ "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything," make an espresso, and proceed to the computer to search for images of Francisco Goya’s "Los Caprichos" series of 18th-century etchings.
That’s because in chapter 14, Hitchens specifically refers to Plate 43 of Goya’s series. It is called The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, and shows a "man in defenseless slumber … hag-ridden by bats, owls and other haunters of the darkness."
The author’s actual point in citing this effective visual aid is to take a view contrary to that of the etching’s originally intended symbolic properties, namely, to offer that human reason always is the subject of fear and distrust when viewed through the distorted lens of man’s religious impulse, and that human reason is derided accordingly throughout mankind’s damaging religious experience.
Damaging? Of course. Just ask the “heretic” who was burned for believing what science in time confirmed.
One aspect of my upbringing for which I’m eternally grateful was the near complete absence of religious instruction. There was an old book in the house about the lives of the saints, and it included some fairly frightening scary drawings depicting the various ways that these saints were tortured and scourged, though they were not to Goya’s level of artistic proficiency. I recall another volume of illustrated children’s Bible stories, and of course a Bible itself, presumably awarded my parents on their wedding day, and duly ignored by my father forever after.
Beyond these three seldom consulted sources, there was nothing else on the topic of religion, and I was permitted to grow to maturity with the luxury of making up my own mind absent indoctrination. When I became immersed in philosophy as my degree choice in college, it merely confirmed what I already suspected all along.
Hitchens reminds us that Blaise Pascal is famous for supporting belief in god by means of a wager, or more appropriately, a conscious effort to cover the spread: If you believe in god and god exists, you win. If you believe in god and god doesn’t exist … well, what does it matter, anyway?
Bertrand Russell is equally famous for refuting this wager by positing that if, after he died, he unexpectedly met a god of one sort or another, he would chide the "supreme being" for providing insufficient evidence. Hitchens follows suit by stating his own version of Russell’s words.
My own reply: Imponderable Sir, I presume from some if not all of your many reputations that you might prefer honest and convinced unbelief to the hypocritical and self-interested affectation of faith or the smoking tributes of bloody altars. But I would not count on it.
I wouldn’t, either. It’s interesting to me that in some measure, Goya was right, and my own personal demons spring from my reliance on reason. But that’s encouraging, because it means that reason, properly applied, can scatter and dispel them.
There is no other choice, is there? Here is an excerpt from Hitchens as he summarizes his case.
Religion has run out of justifications. Thanks to the telescope and the microscope, it no longer offers an explanation of anything important. Where once it used to be able, by its total command of a worldview, to prevent the emergence of rivals, it can now only impede and retard – or try to turn back – the measurable advances that we have made. Sometimes, true, it will artfully concede them. But this is to offer itself the choice between irrelevance and obstruction, impotence or outright reaction, and, given this choice, it is programmed to select the worse of the two.
Enjoy a beautiful Sunday, and I promise that the next installment of the Yugoslav travelogue is coming very soon.
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16 comments:
There is no place in the US Constitiution that states that you have to be a Christian to be a citizen and live in these 50 states. Anyone that believes that should do a little education instead of relying upon "they" to state otherwise.
The statement made afer 9.11.2001by the present US President that "if you are not a Christian, then your are not an American" is totally false and he should have made a public apology to set the record straight.
That said, this country was built upon others who escaped other countries in order to practice their own religion; that has changed somewhere along the way, just as abortion has become a campaign stump subject. Thank You Ron Reagan.
ed,
a quick google search pulls up zero results for that quote. can you clarify?
How has this country stopped being a place where people can practice their religions freely?
The issue is not so much the fervency of one's beliefs as the willingness to use coercion (typically government) to bolster those beliefs. (More particularly, the issue is using coercion to mess with people who are not doing direct and significant harm to others.)
Over history, Christians have done this to some (regrettable) extent, but the impact has been relatively modestly. Of course, atheistic regimes have been far more active and "successful" in this respect-- especially when they really get rolling.
Aside from the use of coercion, many people actually prefer the company of their peers and "heretics". Both are much more fun than mealy-mouthed moderates or those who haven't bothered to invest in the issue that is of such interest to us.
Over history, Christians have done this to some (regrettable) extent, but the impact has been relatively modestly.
You're kidding, right?
Modest?
The separation of church and state is really more important in protecting religion from government.
Government is much more likely to use religion to further its aims than the other way around. We should realize that, in general, fundamentalists are not religious zealots co-opting government, but right-wing politicians conveniently using "religion" to further their aims.
The English philosopher John Locke wrote in his "Letter Concerning Toleration" on page 35 the following - "The care... of every man's Soul belongs unto himself, and is to be left unto himself."
While this is ultimately true, I endeavor to help those with the question of eternity and where their souls will spend it. With that said, Roger, I prayed for you today.
As long as the caveat "relatively speaking" (compared to the atheists) is included. Yes. Do the Christians have anything to match the 100 million deaths of Hitler, Mao and Stalin-- or even the paltry millions by second-tier despots like Pol Pot, Mugabe, Ceausescu, etc.?
The joy of religious faith or atheism is that no one can prove either. People of faith profess what they believe in, can share their faith all they want, but ultimately it’s all about having beliefs or not having beliefs. I once had a final exam on the Philosophy of Religion and the exam was listening to a 10 minute recording by Betrand Russell and commenting on it. He was stating why he didn’t believe and we commented back, using his statements, as stating as to why we ultimately did believe. There are many things that I do find offensive in our current world view within Christianity.
First, I keep hearing (or reading) that Christians are persecuted for their beliefs and are not allowed the freedom of religion like they once were. I often wonder, whenever I hear this, as to where these people live. I have been in ministry since 1980 and have preached many, many sermons and been in many public arenas and the amount of times I have been challenged as to what I was allowed to say or not still sits at a major zero. Society is not as accommodating to churches as, perhaps, it once was, but to place this on the level of persecution is trite in light of people who have experienced real persecution in the past or in other countries.
Secondly, I find it offensive when political positions are influencing Christianity more than Christianity is influencing political positions. The lines often blur but there are distinctions. The number one social issue in the Bible is one of poverty. The wealthy and the self-righteous served as fodder for Jesus more than any other group. In recent years I have seen the economic philosophy of Ayn Rand (who was an atheist) expounded from churches as “Gospel,” when often quite the opposite is true.
Thirdly, I think it’s unfair to just point out the ‘bad’ times in Christianity and miss the ‘good’ issues in Christianity. Presuming one finds slavery to be offensive, much of the genesis of the anti-slavery movements began in Congregational Churches in Boston. Much of the Civil Rights movement had its genesis again in churches in New England and in African American churches in the south. Conversely, much ill was preached in terms of slavery in churches in that era and many churches preached against Civil Rights. (This boggles my mind.) In churches now, we see the say in response to people in our communities who are gay. Many churches have greeted the gay community in welcoming fashions, others have been, frankly, less than kind.
As for the cooking of heretics, leave it to someone else. There is certainly enough cruelty in our world without me adding to it.
Hitler considered himself a Christian and claimed at times that he was fulfilling God's will by attacking Jews.
His religious ramblings over the years are frighteningly similar to the rhetoric we hear from some extreme fundamentalists today.
Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot were atheists but the proliferation of atheism was neither a central impetus nor goal of their actions. Marx himself said that atheism wasn't necessary for communism.
Though denounced by some church officials, Mugabe has been widely reported to be a Roman Catholic, which I think we can all agree doesn't reflect atheism.
ES - I don't know how useful it is to quibble about such things, but controlling for relative technologies of death (much greater in the 20th century) and the size of popultions (much greater in the 20th century), I'd say Christianity has put some points on the board.
The so-called thirty years war, witch hunts (Malleus Maleficarum, anyone?) and centuries of crusade immediately come to mind.
The larger point, I suppose, is that human beings are capable of great evil. Sometimes religion provides the cover. Personally, I don't fault Jesus when people kill in his name, just human nature.
You might add Bush to the warped Christianity death list as well, since much of his Iraq rhetoric has been mired in theology, attempting to make his foreign policy sound like the will of God.
Hitler a Christian? Please...
Communism has no connection to atheism? Uhh...
Attaching Bush, death, and Christianity is more reasonable-- and again, quite unfortunate. (By the way, I acknowledge that point as probably the only anti-war candidate for the 9th District in November.)
BWS makes a nice point about relative death-- given population, technology, and so on. Sure, Christianity has unfortunately put some points on the board. I don't see how it will match the productivity of the Big Three or their second-tier wannabes.
In any case, BWS makes the ultimate point: that this comes down to human nature, particularly when supplemented by the force of government-- the FAR larger issue here!
Except...that religion, especially when tied up with nationalism, is very good at providing the cover government needs to oppress and kill people.
What a depressing topic for a beautiful day.
Little time to contribute my two cents, but I defer to this page from the blog Debunking Christianity:
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2007/10/religion-is-totalitarianism.html
There is an excellent video clip of Christopher Hitchens, and the opinion expressed therein is mine, too.
Religion is totalitarianism; it requires complete obedience to the figurehead, even to the point of outlawing certain thoughts.
There is much that I do admire about Martin Luther. Luther, however, was noted for a large number of anti-Semitic rants and many of these were used by the Nazi's as a 'Christian' justification for the holocaust.
It strikes me that people who speak in God's name (or claim to) and don't have a heart, are the most dangerous people imaginable.
Yes Mr. Manzo, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggert, Jim Baker and many others who have played the voice of whomever and exploited others for the money.
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