Religion as Fandom
Feb. 19th, 2016 03:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blimixI have a theory. It involves two ideas:
1. Religious people are not as irrational as they give themselves credit for.
2. Going to church is a lot like going to Harry Potter Fan Club* meetings (with a few key differences).
* I wrote this a long time ago. Because J.K.R. is a hateful transphobe, antisemite, racist, and also plagiarist, my modern writing avoids using her books as examples.
Before I explain the theory, I have to ask the question that the theory purports to explain.
Before I ask the question, I have to give a disclaimer:
There are background elements here that may be offensive to theists. This presents a problem for me in writing this, as I have plenty of wonderful friends who believe in god, and who will read this, and whom I do not wish to offend. First, if you do not think that you can maturely handle the idea of the nonexistence of God, please stop reading here. I intend to explore the idea that holding a theistic religion can be more rational than it sounds to an atheist, while still being incorrect. This explanation is utterly unneeded by someone who believes in god, and so such a person will miss little of import by skipping this post. Second, the question involves an assumption that on first glance sounds insulting: That not only is god nonexistent, but his nonexistence is obvious, such that belief in god would need to be explained. The theory explores ways in which someone might believe in god less than they think they do.
Yes, I get that that can be taken as insult to one's faith. It's like when people say, "There are no atheists in foxholes." When I first heard that, I took it as insultingly dismissive of atheists' understanding that there is no god. But on further reflection, the assumption underlying the statement was more pitiable than insulting: The idea that nobody is rational enough to continue to believe things based on evidence, when confronted with fear of the consequences of those beliefs. The "foxholes" sentiment reveals a weak mind which fails to grasp that there are better reasons than desire to believe things, and I cannot help but pity such a mind.
Similarly, I invite you, if you believe in god, to pity my godless existence rather than take offense at my questioning the depth of your faith. I only do it because it seems to me (rightly or wrongly) that you shouldn't believe as strongly as you seem to, and I am attempting, in my own way, to be generous in contextualizing that.
To be precise, the question comes from the point of view of a "strong atheist": Someone who believes that God does not exist, and (in many cases, including mine) that real world evidence contradicts the existence of the God portrayed by Abrahamic religions. This essay is not about that evidence: There are already countless works (including mine) dedicated to refuting theistic ideas. Rather, the question takes as a premise that the nonexistence of God is obvious to those who weigh the evidence of the real world with an open mind. (It's a bit like the way that religions that aren't yours are obviously wrong, only based on observation rather than indoctrination.) I wish to make this explicit, because if I ask the question otherwise, this unstated premise would make it sound insulting.
So, given that God is obviously (to strong atheists) fictional, the question, spoken by many an exasperated atheist, is: "Why are there reasonably intelligent people who believe in God?"
(If you believe in God, a nearly equivalent question, which can be addressed similarly, would be, "Why are there reasonably intelligent people who believe in other Gods?" If you're tempted to say, "Maybe the existence of reasonably intelligent people who believe in God means there's something to this God business," no, it really doesn't. At best, it means only that the question of the existence of God is interesting enough to have advocates on both sides. There are people who believe in all sorts of discredited notions; you would be a very poor rationalist to let some people's incorrect beliefs change your mind, once you understand that those beliefs have been disproven by facts, or shown to be logically inconsistent.)
We have some easy answers to this — you may already have one or more in mind — but I don't think that the easy answers are comprehensive enough to satisfy.
For example, there's the "no choice" explanation: Lots of people get raised in a culture in which God is assumed; even questions of theology take his existence as a premise, and so these people never find themselves in a context which invites them to question it. (In fact, if you live in a place where questioning your religion will get you ostracized or beheaded, then continuing to subscribe to your religion, for the sake of your well-being, is arguably a rational thing to do. The assumption that everyone has the opportunity to choose their religion smacks of privilege.) The "no choice" explanation falls short on two counts: First, religiously heterogeneous cities harbor some intelligent theists, despite the fact that they are exposed to other ideas and are free to choose. Second, even people in one-church towns suffer crises of faith (usually related to the argument from evil: "How could God let this happen?") which give them a context in which to start questioning God's existence and/or love. So, a lot of theists are not accounted for this way.
Another easy explanation is that religious people "bubble" themselves: By exposing themselves to ideas that support their religion, and avoiding or ignoring ideas which do not, they reinforce the confirmation bias that lets them think that their religion is the One True Way despite all evidence to the contrary. From what I've heard, this is thoroughly the case in fundamentalist households (where cartoons may be forbidden because talking animals are blasphemous), but do you know who is not accounted for by this explanation? YOU. Unless this post goes viral, most of my readers will consist of my beloved and generally quite intelligent friends, more than half of whom believe in some sort of god/goddess/gods. Whether you thought, "I wonder what he has to say," or "Oh look, Joe's at it again," you decided to read this post. You didn't bubble yourself. The theists I know are perfectly happy to interact with atheists: Heck, my wife even married one! So again, the explanation covers some people, but is by no means comprehensive.
A third explanation is that religious authorities are competent con artists. As I wrote previously, "Sadly, even smart people get taken in by scams and fallacies. It requires the application of experience and critical thinking skills to avoid those. Being smart makes it easier to acquire skills, but by no means guarantees that a person will either gain relevant experience or learn any particular skill, critical thinking included." I have in fact seen smart people taken in by scams and logical fallacies spread by religious authorities and their minions. But why should someone make the leap from (for example) the argument from ignorance ("I don't know how this could happen naturally; therefore it couldn't, so God must have caused it") to believing in an entire religion full of beliefs that clearly contradict reality? And what about people who convert to religions that don't evangelize? I've never seen pagans or Jews trying to convert anybody, and yet some people convert to paganism and Judaism of their own accord. So this explanation, too, seems insufficient.
We need an explanation that goes the extra mile: One that accounts for reasonable people embracing religions that claim resurrections, souls, talking snakes, benevolent gods that give babies malaria, omniscient gods that can't tell Israelites from Egyptians without the help of lamb's blood, perfect gods whose actions you can influence by prayer, and a universe that was created 521 million years after trilobites.
And so I give you: Religion as Fandom.
Most beliefs tie directly into a large web of other beliefs about the real world. A belief about the lack of efficacy of leaving a house by an upstairs window ties into beliefs about falling, about gravity, about injury, and even about the inadequacy of one's arms regarding closing the window afterward.
People also hold beliefs about fictional things, but those are tied into small, isolated webs of other beliefs sharing the same constructed fiction. In a healthy person, those beliefs influence the web of "real world" beliefs either barely or not at all. Harry Potter fans may firmly believe (because the books say so) that Sirius Black spent twelve years in Azkaban Prison. This ties into their beliefs about the dementors used as guards, and about his having been framed by Peter Pettigrew. None of these connect to their real world beliefs. These fans could have an earnest discussion about Black's escape, but would (rightly) be incredulous and insulted if someone interrupted, "You know dementors aren't real, right?" Yes, they know. Some fans might have Harry Potter themed gatherings, and put on Hogwarts robes, but that is merely how they share their enthusiasm: They understand that what happens in the Harry Potter universe stays in the Harry Potter universe.
My theory is that, in sufficiently rational people, theistic beliefs constitute another of these small, isolated webs. ("Small" is relative. A dedicated theist might know much more about God than would even fit in the smaller Harry Potter books, but that's still tiny compared to the extent of their real world knowledge, which includes the price of gas last week and how many eggs are left in the fridge.) They might have God themed gatherings (services), and don religious garments, but that is how they share their enthusiasm. Their belief that God loves them and watches over them does not influence, in any way, their real world belief that leaving by the upstairs window is a bad idea. It would have such influence, if it were part of their real world belief system: "God loves me and is all-powerful, so he will protect me from harm when I jump out the window." If the two belief systems interact, then that is a perfectly reasonable conclusion. But believers don't jump out the window, because they (wisely) keep their God beliefs separate from their real world beliefs.
There is a catch, though: Acknowledging this separation would be taken as blasphemy. (Blasphemy: Speech that is outlawed so that a religion can stop losing arguments.) Many religious cultures demand that one profess belief. To acknowledge that religious beliefs do not connect to the real world is to acknowledge their fictional nature. This would be grounds for immediately being cast out. This leaves rational, religious people with two alternatives.
First, they can consciously acknowledge their doubts about God. The fact that everyone around them appears to truly believe will pressure them into silencing these doubts. They will feel like frauds for continuing to attend services and spout words of praise to a nonexistent God. Over time, they may find convenient logical fallacies which will enable them to reconcile their faith with their doubts. Or, if they cannot stand the strain and have sufficient privilege to withstand the consequences, they may "come out" as a doubter.
The second option, which is much more comfortable, is to employ "belief in belief". Eliezer Yudkowsky explains the concept in detail. In short, a person can think they have a particular belief, while actually anticipating reality as if they hold the opposite belief. (To put it too simply, you can be wrong about what you believe.) To apply that to this context, a theist might believe, "I am a Christian; a Christian believes in God; of course I believe in God; I pray to God and know that he hears me" while still anticipating that the real world will behave exactly as though God did not exist. (e.g., "That snake is not going to talk to me" or "I might get hurt if I jump out that window" or "This dead person won't come back to life". Indeed, if a snake were to talk to a Christian and a Harry Potter fan, both people would be equally astonished, despite the precedent explicitly set in their respective beloved books, because they both know that these books do not describe the real world.) A theist who entertains the delusion that they don't know that God is fictional will occasionally have to make excuses for the disconnect between their theistic beliefs and their real world beliefs, but this is an easy and long-practiced feat: "God helps those who help themselves." "God works in mysterious ways." "God will hear your prayers eventually." "They must not have been praying hard enough." "Everything will be made right in Heaven." "God wouldn't help someone like that." "God isn't subject to your logic." "Nothing created God; he created himself." Because defending a set of fictitious beliefs is awkward, and might provoke uncomfortable introspection, most theists consider it gauche and insulting to ask them to do so. (Many consider even the existence of atheists to be a challenge or affront, revealing an insecurity that I wrote about here.)
There you have the meat of the theory of Religion as Fandom: Most theists keep their religious beliefs separate from their real world beliefs, so the discrepancies between the two neither bother them nor lead them into clearly self-harming actions in the real world.
It still remains the case that religious figures and ideology can lead people into harming others, but this is usually not a direct result of religious belief. When religious leaders inspire their flocks to violence, it is an act calculated to benefit themselves, and is not influenced by a belief in God or talking snakes. People may seek to strengthen their social bonds through common hatred and violence; carrying it out in the name of God is a convenient excuse to avoid moral thought, while impressing others with their zeal.
I'm not saying that religion is not a problem! The ability to substitute religion for morality allows people to commit horrible acts. I am merely saying that religious belief itself is usually not the motivation for such acts.
Unfortunately, this use of the word "usually" hides a frightening phenomenon: What I call the True Believer. This person is the exception to my theory: They treat their religious beliefs, for all purposes, as part of their real world beliefs. This causes them to behave irrationally in any aspect of life touched by their belief system. Their behavior is unpredictable, because a contradictory belief system can justify literally anything. (This is not just a sentiment of atheists; it is a mathematical fact. It is also embodied in the quote, "The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose" (Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice), a favorite of Christians who use it to escape scrutiny of their inconsistent beliefs.)
In July of 2011, Veronica Cirella, by all accounts a loving mother, murdered her disabled daughter and planned her own suicide. She wrote, "I had to give her a better life, which was to give her back to heaven. She does not deserve to be in pain whatsoever. I don't mind going to hell because I took my life to give her a better life which is in heaven where she can be free." In December of 2014, the "nice lady" Lindsey Blansett murdered her son because she thought he'd be better off in heaven. You can dismiss these people as mentally ill or morally depraved (either or both of which may be the case), but their motivation, as True Believers, is quite clear. They loved their children, and honestly believed, at the time, that they were doing them a favor by sending them to heaven. A more rational theist would find this repugnant: When it comes to truly, viscerally important things like the lives of your children, you don't let your religious beliefs guide you: You use actual morality and real world evidence to make your decisions. But to a True Believer, to whom heaven is quite real, these killings can make sense as the act of a loving parent. (In the Bible, Abraham is venerated for his willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac for religious reasons, despite the fact that "following orders" is an even worse excuse than "better off in heaven".)
Do you think that these are isolated incidents? No. "I let them know they were loved very much and they were going to heaven." No. "George explained that he had to put Mary and Matthew in a better place, a happier place. And heaven is a happier place." Think on this: Millions of anti-vaxxers risk the lives of their children just because they've let one fraudulent idea implant itself in their web of real world beliefs. What do you think the effect of an entire theology could be, if one were to regard it all as fact? Even locally, I have had indirect exposure to the horrors and abuse that a loving True Believer can inflict on their family; the prospect of being subject to the whims of such a person is disquieting.
By now, I have made it sound cut-and-dried: A person's religious beliefs are either entangled with or separate from their real world beliefs. But shades of gray exist. People who subscribe to non-organized religions may have a set of religious beliefs whose areas of conflict with real world beliefs are small enough to allow continued rational action, despite the integration of those beliefs. Or they may not! A single contradiction is all that is required to cause problems. Still, the fewer contradictions of reality a person maintains, the smaller is their impetus for a misstep. (Nontheistic religions need entertain no contradictions of the real world, and so are outside the scope of this essay.)
An interesting middle ground occurs in Judaism, in which one can admit a failure to believe, and still remain a member of the community. Any Jew with an interest in the history of their religion can find out where their tenets come from. The kosher law prohibiting the mixing of meat and milk, for example, was put in place in order to keep people from accidentally violating the rule against boiling a kid in its mother's milk. This boiling was part of a pagan ritual that was forbidden to Jews, not because it was heretical, but because the adoption of other people's rituals would assist undesirable cultural assimilation. (Note: There are other interpretations, and debate, because there always are. That's not the point.) It is perfectly normal for a Jew to say, "That's a silly reason to have separate plates; I'm not performing any goat rituals!" and yet continue to follow the rule. Do you know what you can also do as a Jew? Doubt the existence of God. That's fine! Jews (in my experience) have license to, if they wish, acknowledge the disconnect between their religious beliefs and their understanding of reality. In my opinion, this makes Judaism resilient to challenges to its beliefs: "Yeah, whatever. I already know it's kind of silly. What can I say? I like the people. And brisket." (There are, of course, some who will be offended by challenges. Please don't read this and assume that any Jew you meet is up for a round of philosophical prodding.)
In contrast, Catholics would be mortified if they knew the origin of the idea that an embryo has a soul. In short, someone with a primitive microscope thought that sperm looked like people. Even those who know it are careful to euphemistically attribute the 1869 ruling to "advances in biology". Quite understandable! Because they cannot admit the disconnect between their religious beliefs and their real world beliefs, they have to shield themselves from, or deny, any evidence, logic, or questions that would attempt to make the two interact.
Please recall that my object here has nothing to do with making a case against religious people. Quite the opposite: I hope to reassure concerned atheists that, when a religious person claims to hold any number of outlandish beliefs, that person probably isn't the horribly irrational True Believer they are pretending to be. They're probably just playing their assumed role, wearing the right clothes and earnestly spouting the right magic words to remain members in good standing of the God Fan Club.
1. Religious people are not as irrational as they give themselves credit for.
2. Going to church is a lot like going to Harry Potter Fan Club* meetings (with a few key differences).
* I wrote this a long time ago. Because J.K.R. is a hateful transphobe, antisemite, racist, and also plagiarist, my modern writing avoids using her books as examples.
Before I explain the theory, I have to ask the question that the theory purports to explain.
Before I ask the question, I have to give a disclaimer:
There are background elements here that may be offensive to theists. This presents a problem for me in writing this, as I have plenty of wonderful friends who believe in god, and who will read this, and whom I do not wish to offend. First, if you do not think that you can maturely handle the idea of the nonexistence of God, please stop reading here. I intend to explore the idea that holding a theistic religion can be more rational than it sounds to an atheist, while still being incorrect. This explanation is utterly unneeded by someone who believes in god, and so such a person will miss little of import by skipping this post. Second, the question involves an assumption that on first glance sounds insulting: That not only is god nonexistent, but his nonexistence is obvious, such that belief in god would need to be explained. The theory explores ways in which someone might believe in god less than they think they do.
Yes, I get that that can be taken as insult to one's faith. It's like when people say, "There are no atheists in foxholes." When I first heard that, I took it as insultingly dismissive of atheists' understanding that there is no god. But on further reflection, the assumption underlying the statement was more pitiable than insulting: The idea that nobody is rational enough to continue to believe things based on evidence, when confronted with fear of the consequences of those beliefs. The "foxholes" sentiment reveals a weak mind which fails to grasp that there are better reasons than desire to believe things, and I cannot help but pity such a mind.
Similarly, I invite you, if you believe in god, to pity my godless existence rather than take offense at my questioning the depth of your faith. I only do it because it seems to me (rightly or wrongly) that you shouldn't believe as strongly as you seem to, and I am attempting, in my own way, to be generous in contextualizing that.
To be precise, the question comes from the point of view of a "strong atheist": Someone who believes that God does not exist, and (in many cases, including mine) that real world evidence contradicts the existence of the God portrayed by Abrahamic religions. This essay is not about that evidence: There are already countless works (including mine) dedicated to refuting theistic ideas. Rather, the question takes as a premise that the nonexistence of God is obvious to those who weigh the evidence of the real world with an open mind. (It's a bit like the way that religions that aren't yours are obviously wrong, only based on observation rather than indoctrination.) I wish to make this explicit, because if I ask the question otherwise, this unstated premise would make it sound insulting.
So, given that God is obviously (to strong atheists) fictional, the question, spoken by many an exasperated atheist, is: "Why are there reasonably intelligent people who believe in God?"
(If you believe in God, a nearly equivalent question, which can be addressed similarly, would be, "Why are there reasonably intelligent people who believe in other Gods?" If you're tempted to say, "Maybe the existence of reasonably intelligent people who believe in God means there's something to this God business," no, it really doesn't. At best, it means only that the question of the existence of God is interesting enough to have advocates on both sides. There are people who believe in all sorts of discredited notions; you would be a very poor rationalist to let some people's incorrect beliefs change your mind, once you understand that those beliefs have been disproven by facts, or shown to be logically inconsistent.)
We have some easy answers to this — you may already have one or more in mind — but I don't think that the easy answers are comprehensive enough to satisfy.
For example, there's the "no choice" explanation: Lots of people get raised in a culture in which God is assumed; even questions of theology take his existence as a premise, and so these people never find themselves in a context which invites them to question it. (In fact, if you live in a place where questioning your religion will get you ostracized or beheaded, then continuing to subscribe to your religion, for the sake of your well-being, is arguably a rational thing to do. The assumption that everyone has the opportunity to choose their religion smacks of privilege.) The "no choice" explanation falls short on two counts: First, religiously heterogeneous cities harbor some intelligent theists, despite the fact that they are exposed to other ideas and are free to choose. Second, even people in one-church towns suffer crises of faith (usually related to the argument from evil: "How could God let this happen?") which give them a context in which to start questioning God's existence and/or love. So, a lot of theists are not accounted for this way.
Another easy explanation is that religious people "bubble" themselves: By exposing themselves to ideas that support their religion, and avoiding or ignoring ideas which do not, they reinforce the confirmation bias that lets them think that their religion is the One True Way despite all evidence to the contrary. From what I've heard, this is thoroughly the case in fundamentalist households (where cartoons may be forbidden because talking animals are blasphemous), but do you know who is not accounted for by this explanation? YOU. Unless this post goes viral, most of my readers will consist of my beloved and generally quite intelligent friends, more than half of whom believe in some sort of god/goddess/gods. Whether you thought, "I wonder what he has to say," or "Oh look, Joe's at it again," you decided to read this post. You didn't bubble yourself. The theists I know are perfectly happy to interact with atheists: Heck, my wife even married one! So again, the explanation covers some people, but is by no means comprehensive.
A third explanation is that religious authorities are competent con artists. As I wrote previously, "Sadly, even smart people get taken in by scams and fallacies. It requires the application of experience and critical thinking skills to avoid those. Being smart makes it easier to acquire skills, but by no means guarantees that a person will either gain relevant experience or learn any particular skill, critical thinking included." I have in fact seen smart people taken in by scams and logical fallacies spread by religious authorities and their minions. But why should someone make the leap from (for example) the argument from ignorance ("I don't know how this could happen naturally; therefore it couldn't, so God must have caused it") to believing in an entire religion full of beliefs that clearly contradict reality? And what about people who convert to religions that don't evangelize? I've never seen pagans or Jews trying to convert anybody, and yet some people convert to paganism and Judaism of their own accord. So this explanation, too, seems insufficient.
We need an explanation that goes the extra mile: One that accounts for reasonable people embracing religions that claim resurrections, souls, talking snakes, benevolent gods that give babies malaria, omniscient gods that can't tell Israelites from Egyptians without the help of lamb's blood, perfect gods whose actions you can influence by prayer, and a universe that was created 521 million years after trilobites.
And so I give you: Religion as Fandom.
Most beliefs tie directly into a large web of other beliefs about the real world. A belief about the lack of efficacy of leaving a house by an upstairs window ties into beliefs about falling, about gravity, about injury, and even about the inadequacy of one's arms regarding closing the window afterward.
People also hold beliefs about fictional things, but those are tied into small, isolated webs of other beliefs sharing the same constructed fiction. In a healthy person, those beliefs influence the web of "real world" beliefs either barely or not at all. Harry Potter fans may firmly believe (because the books say so) that Sirius Black spent twelve years in Azkaban Prison. This ties into their beliefs about the dementors used as guards, and about his having been framed by Peter Pettigrew. None of these connect to their real world beliefs. These fans could have an earnest discussion about Black's escape, but would (rightly) be incredulous and insulted if someone interrupted, "You know dementors aren't real, right?" Yes, they know. Some fans might have Harry Potter themed gatherings, and put on Hogwarts robes, but that is merely how they share their enthusiasm: They understand that what happens in the Harry Potter universe stays in the Harry Potter universe.
My theory is that, in sufficiently rational people, theistic beliefs constitute another of these small, isolated webs. ("Small" is relative. A dedicated theist might know much more about God than would even fit in the smaller Harry Potter books, but that's still tiny compared to the extent of their real world knowledge, which includes the price of gas last week and how many eggs are left in the fridge.) They might have God themed gatherings (services), and don religious garments, but that is how they share their enthusiasm. Their belief that God loves them and watches over them does not influence, in any way, their real world belief that leaving by the upstairs window is a bad idea. It would have such influence, if it were part of their real world belief system: "God loves me and is all-powerful, so he will protect me from harm when I jump out the window." If the two belief systems interact, then that is a perfectly reasonable conclusion. But believers don't jump out the window, because they (wisely) keep their God beliefs separate from their real world beliefs.
There is a catch, though: Acknowledging this separation would be taken as blasphemy. (Blasphemy: Speech that is outlawed so that a religion can stop losing arguments.) Many religious cultures demand that one profess belief. To acknowledge that religious beliefs do not connect to the real world is to acknowledge their fictional nature. This would be grounds for immediately being cast out. This leaves rational, religious people with two alternatives.
First, they can consciously acknowledge their doubts about God. The fact that everyone around them appears to truly believe will pressure them into silencing these doubts. They will feel like frauds for continuing to attend services and spout words of praise to a nonexistent God. Over time, they may find convenient logical fallacies which will enable them to reconcile their faith with their doubts. Or, if they cannot stand the strain and have sufficient privilege to withstand the consequences, they may "come out" as a doubter.
The second option, which is much more comfortable, is to employ "belief in belief". Eliezer Yudkowsky explains the concept in detail. In short, a person can think they have a particular belief, while actually anticipating reality as if they hold the opposite belief. (To put it too simply, you can be wrong about what you believe.) To apply that to this context, a theist might believe, "I am a Christian; a Christian believes in God; of course I believe in God; I pray to God and know that he hears me" while still anticipating that the real world will behave exactly as though God did not exist. (e.g., "That snake is not going to talk to me" or "I might get hurt if I jump out that window" or "This dead person won't come back to life". Indeed, if a snake were to talk to a Christian and a Harry Potter fan, both people would be equally astonished, despite the precedent explicitly set in their respective beloved books, because they both know that these books do not describe the real world.) A theist who entertains the delusion that they don't know that God is fictional will occasionally have to make excuses for the disconnect between their theistic beliefs and their real world beliefs, but this is an easy and long-practiced feat: "God helps those who help themselves." "God works in mysterious ways." "God will hear your prayers eventually." "They must not have been praying hard enough." "Everything will be made right in Heaven." "God wouldn't help someone like that." "God isn't subject to your logic." "Nothing created God; he created himself." Because defending a set of fictitious beliefs is awkward, and might provoke uncomfortable introspection, most theists consider it gauche and insulting to ask them to do so. (Many consider even the existence of atheists to be a challenge or affront, revealing an insecurity that I wrote about here.)
There you have the meat of the theory of Religion as Fandom: Most theists keep their religious beliefs separate from their real world beliefs, so the discrepancies between the two neither bother them nor lead them into clearly self-harming actions in the real world.
It still remains the case that religious figures and ideology can lead people into harming others, but this is usually not a direct result of religious belief. When religious leaders inspire their flocks to violence, it is an act calculated to benefit themselves, and is not influenced by a belief in God or talking snakes. People may seek to strengthen their social bonds through common hatred and violence; carrying it out in the name of God is a convenient excuse to avoid moral thought, while impressing others with their zeal.
I'm not saying that religion is not a problem! The ability to substitute religion for morality allows people to commit horrible acts. I am merely saying that religious belief itself is usually not the motivation for such acts.
Unfortunately, this use of the word "usually" hides a frightening phenomenon: What I call the True Believer. This person is the exception to my theory: They treat their religious beliefs, for all purposes, as part of their real world beliefs. This causes them to behave irrationally in any aspect of life touched by their belief system. Their behavior is unpredictable, because a contradictory belief system can justify literally anything. (This is not just a sentiment of atheists; it is a mathematical fact. It is also embodied in the quote, "The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose" (Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice), a favorite of Christians who use it to escape scrutiny of their inconsistent beliefs.)
In July of 2011, Veronica Cirella, by all accounts a loving mother, murdered her disabled daughter and planned her own suicide. She wrote, "I had to give her a better life, which was to give her back to heaven. She does not deserve to be in pain whatsoever. I don't mind going to hell because I took my life to give her a better life which is in heaven where she can be free." In December of 2014, the "nice lady" Lindsey Blansett murdered her son because she thought he'd be better off in heaven. You can dismiss these people as mentally ill or morally depraved (either or both of which may be the case), but their motivation, as True Believers, is quite clear. They loved their children, and honestly believed, at the time, that they were doing them a favor by sending them to heaven. A more rational theist would find this repugnant: When it comes to truly, viscerally important things like the lives of your children, you don't let your religious beliefs guide you: You use actual morality and real world evidence to make your decisions. But to a True Believer, to whom heaven is quite real, these killings can make sense as the act of a loving parent. (In the Bible, Abraham is venerated for his willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac for religious reasons, despite the fact that "following orders" is an even worse excuse than "better off in heaven".)
Do you think that these are isolated incidents? No. "I let them know they were loved very much and they were going to heaven." No. "George explained that he had to put Mary and Matthew in a better place, a happier place. And heaven is a happier place." Think on this: Millions of anti-vaxxers risk the lives of their children just because they've let one fraudulent idea implant itself in their web of real world beliefs. What do you think the effect of an entire theology could be, if one were to regard it all as fact? Even locally, I have had indirect exposure to the horrors and abuse that a loving True Believer can inflict on their family; the prospect of being subject to the whims of such a person is disquieting.
By now, I have made it sound cut-and-dried: A person's religious beliefs are either entangled with or separate from their real world beliefs. But shades of gray exist. People who subscribe to non-organized religions may have a set of religious beliefs whose areas of conflict with real world beliefs are small enough to allow continued rational action, despite the integration of those beliefs. Or they may not! A single contradiction is all that is required to cause problems. Still, the fewer contradictions of reality a person maintains, the smaller is their impetus for a misstep. (Nontheistic religions need entertain no contradictions of the real world, and so are outside the scope of this essay.)
An interesting middle ground occurs in Judaism, in which one can admit a failure to believe, and still remain a member of the community. Any Jew with an interest in the history of their religion can find out where their tenets come from. The kosher law prohibiting the mixing of meat and milk, for example, was put in place in order to keep people from accidentally violating the rule against boiling a kid in its mother's milk. This boiling was part of a pagan ritual that was forbidden to Jews, not because it was heretical, but because the adoption of other people's rituals would assist undesirable cultural assimilation. (Note: There are other interpretations, and debate, because there always are. That's not the point.) It is perfectly normal for a Jew to say, "That's a silly reason to have separate plates; I'm not performing any goat rituals!" and yet continue to follow the rule. Do you know what you can also do as a Jew? Doubt the existence of God. That's fine! Jews (in my experience) have license to, if they wish, acknowledge the disconnect between their religious beliefs and their understanding of reality. In my opinion, this makes Judaism resilient to challenges to its beliefs: "Yeah, whatever. I already know it's kind of silly. What can I say? I like the people. And brisket." (There are, of course, some who will be offended by challenges. Please don't read this and assume that any Jew you meet is up for a round of philosophical prodding.)
In contrast, Catholics would be mortified if they knew the origin of the idea that an embryo has a soul. In short, someone with a primitive microscope thought that sperm looked like people. Even those who know it are careful to euphemistically attribute the 1869 ruling to "advances in biology". Quite understandable! Because they cannot admit the disconnect between their religious beliefs and their real world beliefs, they have to shield themselves from, or deny, any evidence, logic, or questions that would attempt to make the two interact.
Please recall that my object here has nothing to do with making a case against religious people. Quite the opposite: I hope to reassure concerned atheists that, when a religious person claims to hold any number of outlandish beliefs, that person probably isn't the horribly irrational True Believer they are pretending to be. They're probably just playing their assumed role, wearing the right clothes and earnestly spouting the right magic words to remain members in good standing of the God Fan Club.
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(no subject)
Date: 2016-02-20 11:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-02-20 09:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-02-19 10:19 pm (UTC)--Beth
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Date: 2016-02-19 10:46 pm (UTC)I subscribe to some of those practices (local/organic) only enough to ensure that I am not rewarding animal cruelty (and occasionally to indulge certain ideas about local economies), and so could not be considered part of that group. Maybe that's like someone who enjoys the benefits of Buddhist meditation, without subscribing to Buddhist philosophies.
I wonder if there's a catch-all term that includes religions and such movements. (Fandom and other acknowledged fictions are optional.) (I'd spend some time thinking about it, but my alarm tells me it's time to head out.)
(no subject)
Date: 2016-02-20 05:45 pm (UTC)But you see this tendency in the fact that a lot of the big religious "debates" that most clearly conflict with scientific evidence - like the age of the Earth/universe and provenance of dinosaurs - are things that won't actually tend to affect the day-to-day decisions of followers. You can get through most lifetimes perfectly well while believing wrong things about what happened 6 million years ago.
(no subject)
Date: 2016-02-20 06:25 pm (UTC)I had more to say, but it is slipping as I've been interrupted.
(no subject)
Date: 2016-02-20 09:48 pm (UTC)religions that aren't yours are obviously wrong
Date: 2016-02-21 06:36 am (UTC)The Episcopalians believe that the Nicene Creed is a sufficient statement of faith, and once accepted, everything else is just details, with respect to how other churches worship and whether or not their religion is "wrong." As reference, I can't find the exact, more modern, passage I'm looking for, but here's a bit passed in 1886:
(from the bottom of http://www.st-vidicon.net/bocp/bocp8.shtml#page864 )
The Episcopal church was very close to re-merging with the Lutheran Church quite recently, but certain differences drove them apart again. Most Christian religions don't consider the others WRONG! more just "not the way we prefer to respond to God in our lives at this time." This is a frequent mis-charactorization by others.
--Beth
Re: religions that aren't yours are obviously wrong
Date: 2016-02-21 02:15 pm (UTC)Re: religions that aren't yours are obviously wrong
Date: 2016-02-21 05:03 pm (UTC)An exception must be made for Buddhists, some of whom simultaneously practice entirely different religions.
But in general, I expect that (for example) if you're a Christian who believes in heaven, you're likely to regard Buddhist and Hindu ideas of reincarnation as "obviously wrong".
Re: religions that aren't yours are obviously wrong
Date: 2016-02-21 05:31 pm (UTC)--Beth