I've only written a rough draft of the preamble so far. [el jo]
Preamble
Christians are the perpetrators of a 2,000-year scheme of inventing God's word, seeking advantages for ourselves, enforcing tyranny, and blaming the failings of civilization on the poor, oppressed and suffering.
While fully ignoring the imperfections and shortcomings of Christian institutions in all ages, we claim the heritage of those Christians who murdered innocent lives during the Spanish Inquisition and enforcing brutal witch hunts throughout Europe and North America. We beatify beyond reason the martyrs who died for the faith, regretting only that they hadn't been able to take out more godless heathens in the process.
After the barbarian tribes overran Europe, Christian monasteries drew their Bibles in seclusion, neglecting the importance of preserving classical literature and art in Western culture. It was Christians who long promoted the institution of slavery, as it was sanctioned in numerous passages of the Old Testament. Evangelical Christians such as George Whitefield and President Jefferson Davis promoted slavery as it was decreed by Almighty God. Christian leaders have helped to imprison the poor and promote child labor.
In Europe, Christianity created the divine rights of kings and successfully fought to establish the rule of monarchs, which made dark-age feudalism possible. And in America, Christians successfully fought against the equal rights of women and the suffrage movement. The great Evangelical revivals in the 1950s and 60s were led by Christians claiming that the scriptures were the only way to assure equal protections for rich, white men everywhere.
The same devotion to human suffering has led Christians in the last decade to end the humanizing blessings of equal rights and sexual diversity, to mock AIDS sufferers around the world, and assist in a myriad of other oppressive actions - from ignoring climate change to discriminating against the homeless and homosexuals.
Like those who have gone before us in the faith, Christians today are called to enforce the Gospel of costly grace, to protect the intrinsic dignity of the Christian person and to stand for the common good as it is prescribed by the Holy Bible. In being true to the literal Word of God, the calling of evangelism, the Church through browbeating and condemnation can make a profound contribution for its own preservation.
20 November 2009
17 October 2009
I'll Pray For You
I've had Christian friends and strangers alike tell me that they'll "pray for me" for varying reasons. These reasons could be anything between them discovering I'm an atheist, to them discovering I'm looking for a job. To this "prayer" nonsense, I have only this to say:
When Christians tell me they're praying, for me or anyone, it always makes me think of Jesus' words when he tells folks not to pray on the street corners. I've already written a blog post about that here, so I won't go off about that again.
There's a very silly website dedicated to the proper body alignment of prayer. I'm sure many atheist folk have already seen it and laughed their arses off, but in the interest of documentation, I'll provide a link to it here:
How Does Prayer Work?
Now I've practiced yoga, and I can say from personal experience that there is a kind of mind-calming effect produced through strenuous physical activity. I've experienced this not only in yoga, but in mountain biking, kayaking, rock climbing, and skiing as well. The phenomenon is not exclusive to yoga or tai chi alone. [citation needed]
Fitness and Mental Health
Claiming that there is a "correct" body posture for prayer is as ridiculous as claiming that there is a "correct" god to pray to. At least meditating monks have the courtesy to retreat to their monasteries for their meditation. Me? I retreat to the splendor of the great outdoors for my "active meditation" usually through hiking or kayaking. Alas, many Christians haven't figured it out yet. Allow me to quote myself:
I don't want your prayers. I don't need your prayers. Put your prayers away! The trees will thank you for it.
It's like rubbing your dick against a tree. Sure, it feels good for you, but it does absolutely nothing for the tree, and it puts people off.
When Christians tell me they're praying, for me or anyone, it always makes me think of Jesus' words when he tells folks not to pray on the street corners. I've already written a blog post about that here, so I won't go off about that again.
There's a very silly website dedicated to the proper body alignment of prayer. I'm sure many atheist folk have already seen it and laughed their arses off, but in the interest of documentation, I'll provide a link to it here:
How Does Prayer Work?
Now I've practiced yoga, and I can say from personal experience that there is a kind of mind-calming effect produced through strenuous physical activity. I've experienced this not only in yoga, but in mountain biking, kayaking, rock climbing, and skiing as well. The phenomenon is not exclusive to yoga or tai chi alone. [citation needed]
Fitness and Mental Health
Claiming that there is a "correct" body posture for prayer is as ridiculous as claiming that there is a "correct" god to pray to. At least meditating monks have the courtesy to retreat to their monasteries for their meditation. Me? I retreat to the splendor of the great outdoors for my "active meditation" usually through hiking or kayaking. Alas, many Christians haven't figured it out yet. Allow me to quote myself:
Praying should be like masturbation: it's something that should never be spoken of in public, and something you should only do in the privacy of your own bedroom.
I don't want your prayers. I don't need your prayers. Put your prayers away! The trees will thank you for it.
06 October 2009
The Teabagger's Bible
The screwballs over at Conservapædia are plotting planning to make a teabagger translation of the Bible. This is going to be both terribly, terribly funny and terribly, terribly tragic. These wisps of fluffy white nothingness (because surely no real human beings believe this) are claiming that the Bible, the Bible, has a liberal bias. Yes, apparently the same Bible that has God™ committing genocide in droves is too liberal for some of our more reactionary-minded conservatives. So their plan is to retranslate what they claim is the greatest version of the Bible, the King James Version, into modern English.[1]
There are two glaring problems with this plan. First off, the claim that contemporary translations of the Bible have a liberal bias is a steaming pile of horse shit. Secondly, as anyone who has played a game of “telephone” can tell you, making a translation of a translation creates all sorts of anomalies in the meaning. Then again, I suppose that’s what they’re going for in the first place.
Conservapædia is gracious enough to provide a few examples of some of the liberal bias contained in the Bible. The teabaggers offer Luke 23:34 as the first example. According to their non-citation citation, Luke 23:34 is a "liberal corruption of the original." While it is true that this verse was not present in some early versions of Luke, is Conservapædia making the claim that as early as fifty years after the death of Jesus, the Bible started getting liberally redacted? How dare those first century Romans besmirch the glory that is 21st century Amurikkka!
Continuing to pick on Luke, in verse 16:8 they bitch about the use of the word 'shrewd.' We don't even need to go to the Greek for this. Just check out the New Oxford English Dictionary for the definition of shrewd:
So the archaic definition of shrewd is what they're bitching about? Talk about living in the past!
The third example: socialism. Oh give me a fucking break! I've got one word for you: medicare. You jackoffs hate socialism so much, let's see how well you do without federal funding for things like roads and public schools. Then again, a significant portion of these backwater bumpkins do in fact live without roads and public schools. Yet somehow they have internet access.
Let them translate their Bible. It will be an interesting social experiment to see what they come up with. I for one am actually looking forward to reading it. I can't wait to pick off all the glaring inconsistencies and fallacies!
1. The Conservapædia footnote “proving” the claim that the Bible has a liberal bias is little more than an opinion that the NIV translation committee “can be expected to be liberal and feminist in outlook.” There is no citation providing evidence for this claim. (But when have teabaggers ever worried about “evidence?”
There are two glaring problems with this plan. First off, the claim that contemporary translations of the Bible have a liberal bias is a steaming pile of horse shit. Secondly, as anyone who has played a game of “telephone” can tell you, making a translation of a translation creates all sorts of anomalies in the meaning. Then again, I suppose that’s what they’re going for in the first place.
Conservapædia offers a list of ten guidelines for their conservative translation of the Bible:
1. Framework against Liberal Bias: Words are known to have a liberal bias. By carefully choosing which modern English words are used to translate the, uh, not-modern English of King James, conservatives can maximize use of specific connotations in order to turn the prophets of the Bible into Chuck Norris.
2. Not Emasculated: Uppity women (who refuse to get back in the fucking kitchen) and homersexurals (who have a right to get tied to the back of my pick-up and dragged until they’re nothing but a pelvis wearing a belt), like to change the original words of Jesus into something they like to call “gender inclusive.” Conservapædia simply seeks to eliminate these glaring mistranslations (in the interest of academia, of course).
3. Not Dumbed Down: Modern translations dumb down the original words of the Bible. Conservapædia will correct this by using words so dense that our conservative base won’t be able to read beyond the words “In the” before giving up.
4. Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: Conservapædia will employ powerful terminology such as “teabagging” (which in no way has anything to do with sucking on a dude’s scrotal sack) as these terms develop. Similarly, we will update “words” which have a change in meaning, such as ‘word,’ ‘in,’ and ‘the.’
5. Combat Harmful Addiction: Modern English terminology such as ‘gamble’ will be replaced with the traditional ‘cast lots,’ because nobody has ever lost the family savings casting lots in Vegas over a drunken Memorial Day Weekend.
6. Accept the Logic of Hell: Hell must expand to accommodate new souls constantly entering it. However, if Hell expands too quickly compared to the rate of incoming souls, it will freeze over. Contrariwise, if Hell doesn’t expand fast enough to accommodate incoming souls, we here on Earth may be faced with a zombie apocalypse. Unless, of course, we’re all raptured first. In that case, the zombies can feast upon the feminazis and the fags.
7. Express Free Market Parables: Modern translations of the Bible depict Jesus as some tree-hugging hippie communist. Conservapædia seeks to praise the Golden Calf of Capitalism by highlighting the numerous economic parables which make the claim that money is God good, and if you don’t have exorbitant amounts of it, then you must be some tree-hugging hippie communist.
8. Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: Conservapædia will retain later-inserted conservative passages, such as all of Paul’s letters and especially Revelation to John, since it is the only book of the New Testament that is the most like Chuck Norris. But any passages referring to Jesus as the Lamb of God, or as a disciple lovin’ faggot will be eliminated.
9. Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: As long as the views of Mark and John are identical with the views of Conservapædia, praise of open-mindedness will be retained.
10. Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: Words bad!
These guidelines will ensure a translation of the Bible that is the literal Word of God.
Conservapædia is gracious enough to provide a few examples of some of the liberal bias contained in the Bible. The teabaggers offer Luke 23:34 as the first example. According to their non-citation citation, Luke 23:34 is a "liberal corruption of the original." While it is true that this verse was not present in some early versions of Luke, is Conservapædia making the claim that as early as fifty years after the death of Jesus, the Bible started getting liberally redacted? How dare those first century Romans besmirch the glory that is 21st century Amurikkka!
Continuing to pick on Luke, in verse 16:8 they bitch about the use of the word 'shrewd.' We don't even need to go to the Greek for this. Just check out the New Oxford English Dictionary for the definition of shrewd:
shrewd | sh roōd|
adjective
1 having or showing sharp powers of judgment; astute : she was shrewd enough to guess the motive behind his gesture | a shrewd career move. See note at keen .
2 archaic (esp. of weather) piercingly cold : a shrewd east wind.
• (of a blow) severe : a bayonet's shrewd thrust.
• mischievous; malicious.
DERIVATIVES
shrewdly adverb
shrewdness noun
ORIGIN Middle English (in the sense [evil in nature or character] ): from shrew in the sense [evil person or thing,] or as the past participle of obsolete shrew [to curse.] The word developed the sense [cunning,] and gradually gained a favorable connotation during the 17th cent.
So the archaic definition of shrewd is what they're bitching about? Talk about living in the past!
The third example: socialism. Oh give me a fucking break! I've got one word for you: medicare. You jackoffs hate socialism so much, let's see how well you do without federal funding for things like roads and public schools. Then again, a significant portion of these backwater bumpkins do in fact live without roads and public schools. Yet somehow they have internet access.
Let them translate their Bible. It will be an interesting social experiment to see what they come up with. I for one am actually looking forward to reading it. I can't wait to pick off all the glaring inconsistencies and fallacies!
1. The Conservapædia footnote “proving” the claim that the Bible has a liberal bias is little more than an opinion that the NIV translation committee “can be expected to be liberal and feminist in outlook.” There is no citation providing evidence for this claim. (But when have teabaggers ever worried about “evidence?”
03 October 2009
How I became an Atheist
A question was posed on Twitter today asking how atheists became atheists in the first place. It's a good question to ask and an even better question to answer. So here goes...
My earliest experience with organized religion was when I was six or seven years old. I had a friend whose family was Catholic. One Sunday, my mom was away and I went to spend the day with my friend. Well, his family took me and my sister to Mass. I remember a point when everybody stood up and got in line to drink wine and eat crackers. I thought to myself, "Hey, cool! I want to drink wine and eat crackers!" However, my friend's mom wouldn't let me because I wasn't allowed to do it. I remember resenting her for that. What was the point of bringing me to their church if I wasn't going to be allowed to participate in the activities? It was my first experience of religious exclusivity and I didn't appreciate it one bit.
My earliest memory on the concept of God was when I was around eight or nine years old. The family cat had run away, devastating my sister and me. However, while I accepted our cat's demise and generally thought no more of it, my sister rationalized it like this: "Well, I guess God just needed our kitty back for some reason." I might have only been a child, but I knew deep in my gut that this line of reasoning was bullshit. It didn't make any sense at all for a god to create a cat for a family, only to rip it away so casually. God didn't have anything to do with our cat's disappearance. The cat wandered off, plain and simple. It could have gotten squished by a car, or adopted by another family, but it most certainly did not have an important luncheon date with God™.
Disillusioned by both the idea of God™ and the institution of religion, I pretty much ignored church altogether. There was only one occasion I can remember in which my whole family, my mom, sister, and I, went to church services. It was at an Episcopal church and it was as boring as fuck. Sit down, kneel, stand up, sit back down, kneel again, stand up, all the while listening to some jackass in a silly frock blather on about stuff I'd never heard of before. Consequently, my family never bothered to go to church again as a unit. However, when I was in high school and began dating, I wound up in three circumstances that landed me in various churches. One was a Mormon church, and the other two were both Baptist churches.
I didn't know anything about the Mormons, but when my date to the church dance told me that guys and girls weren't supposed to be closer than the thickness of the Book of Mormon, I knew that this church was whack. I'm very thankful I didn't attend an actual religious service at the Mormon church. As for my Baptist experience, there were two separate occasions at two separate churches. The first, I was invited to attend a Baptist service with a friend of mine from school. Episcopalian services might have been boring as fuck, but at least they had the trappings of tradition about them. The Baptist service involved listening to a bunch of hippies singing folk songs about how much they love Jesus. I was appalled. I thought to myself, "There's no fucking way I'm ever going to come back into a Baptist church."
I was wrong. In my junior year of high school, I wound up dating a Baptist. Big mistake! Well one day this Baptist sweetie of mine calls me up practically in tears claiming that we can't see each other anymore because I'm not a Christian. Desperate to preserve the relationship, I agreed to go to church in order to try and make things work. So I wound up in a second Baptist service which just made me cringe and hate myself. Needless to say, that relationship did not last long.
I had studied enough history to know that I was thoroughly disgusted with Christianity. It was shortly after my relationship with the Baptist that I began experimenting with other religious traditions. I never really wanted to be religious, I just wanted community. Throughout high school I felt like an outcast, and I desperately sought some kind of community through theater, through clubs, and yes, through religion. One year during Hanukkah, some friends of mine were playing a game involving a little spinny toy of some sort. It was a dreidel. I thought it was cool, so I declared to myself that I was going to be a Jew from now on. I never made any formal declaration or conversion. When people asked me what religion I was, I'd simply say "Jewish." But I was Jewish in name only. Not once did I go to temple services, and the only Jews I knew didn't really have anything to do with me. So much for community. I do participate in Jewish holidays periodically, usually High Holidays, Hanukkah, and Pesach, but I'm more Jew-ish than actually Jewish.
Mainstream religions generally didn't make any sense to me, so I started practicing something of my own devising involving the cycles of the moon, the seasons of the year, and spiritual meditation. It turned out that what I started practicing, before I even knew it, was paganism. I had a number of Llewellyn books (I'm embarrassed to admit), and I read Margot Adler's "Drawing Down the Moon" at least three times. It was in this book that I discovered the religion I'd been looking for all along in the first place: Discordianism.
A religion based on chaos? I liked it. Only a year earlier, in 1993, I had graduated high school. The day of my graduation ceremony was also the same day as the theatrical release of "Jurassic Park." Underneath my robe, I was dressed like Dr. Alan Grant. But it wasn't Dr. Grant that interested me, it was chaotician Ian Malcom that captured my imagination. In both the book and the movie, Malcom described chaos theory, which to my young mind was a very elegant way of looking at the universe. I had taken physics my last year in high school and it had religion beat hands down. Physics, combined with chaos theory and this insane pagan tradition called Discordianism, became my new religion. From 1994 onward, I was a dedicated Discordian. But for me, Eris was shorthand for the cosmos as a whole. Sort of like Richard Dawkins' proposal of God™ as a metaphor for the universe. Eris didn't create the universe, Eris is the universe. Carl Sagan summed this idea up very well saying, "if by 'God' one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God." This philosophy worked for me until I started analyzing the absurdity of calling the universe "God."
Despite finding a philosophy/religion that worked for me, I still hadn't found community and I was feeling more isolated than ever. I dropped out of Junior college in 1998 and started working at various jobs. This was the beginning of a very nebulous period in my life. I was struggling with my sexual identity, coming out, then going back into the closet. Since Eris was only a metaphor for the universe, she didn't really help me with my problems. Going back to Carl Sagan, "It does not make sense to pray to the law of gravity." Eris was just a colorful metaphor for science. It was during this time that my philosophy on gods began to change. When I finally came out of the closet for good in 2002, I was completely non-theistic in my philosophy, but I still wasn't calling myself an atheist.
Bad shit happened to me in the summer of 2004 and by fall I was depressed and suicidal. In November I attempted suicide with sleeping pills and aspirin. Recovering from that, I was absolutely certain that there was no god looking out for me and that I was on my own. I still didn't consider myself an atheist though. Maybe there were gods, maybe there weren't. Whatever the case, they didn't have anything to do with me or my life.
In January of 2005, only five weeks after I tried to end my life, things started getting better for me. I decided to go back to community college and finish my transfer degree, I got myself a girlfriend, and I got a job. I decided then that I wasn't going to try and kill myself anymore because the universe was way too weird a place to want to check out of it voluntarily. At this point I was completely non-theistic, but still not an avowed atheist. I still wanted to believe that there was more out there. Maybe not God per se, but some sort of cosmic consciousness that we would all one day ultimately tap into.
It was in December of 2008 that I officially declared myself an atheist and a nihilist. As much as I wanted to believe in some cosmic consciousness and a teleology of the human mind, it no longer made sense. Consciousness is simply a product of synapses firing in the brain, and there's no such thing as absolute morality. Ethics are a product of human civilization and subject to change with time and custom.
I'm still trying to understand the human mind. I'm still curious about how the mind creates religious belief. And I want to know what biological mechanism is responsible for creating gods. How does my mind tick that makes it so different from a believer's mind? These are fascinating questions and I hope that one day I'll have good answers for them.
Carpe Diem,
ellejohara
My earliest experience with organized religion was when I was six or seven years old. I had a friend whose family was Catholic. One Sunday, my mom was away and I went to spend the day with my friend. Well, his family took me and my sister to Mass. I remember a point when everybody stood up and got in line to drink wine and eat crackers. I thought to myself, "Hey, cool! I want to drink wine and eat crackers!" However, my friend's mom wouldn't let me because I wasn't allowed to do it. I remember resenting her for that. What was the point of bringing me to their church if I wasn't going to be allowed to participate in the activities? It was my first experience of religious exclusivity and I didn't appreciate it one bit.
My earliest memory on the concept of God was when I was around eight or nine years old. The family cat had run away, devastating my sister and me. However, while I accepted our cat's demise and generally thought no more of it, my sister rationalized it like this: "Well, I guess God just needed our kitty back for some reason." I might have only been a child, but I knew deep in my gut that this line of reasoning was bullshit. It didn't make any sense at all for a god to create a cat for a family, only to rip it away so casually. God didn't have anything to do with our cat's disappearance. The cat wandered off, plain and simple. It could have gotten squished by a car, or adopted by another family, but it most certainly did not have an important luncheon date with God™.
Disillusioned by both the idea of God™ and the institution of religion, I pretty much ignored church altogether. There was only one occasion I can remember in which my whole family, my mom, sister, and I, went to church services. It was at an Episcopal church and it was as boring as fuck. Sit down, kneel, stand up, sit back down, kneel again, stand up, all the while listening to some jackass in a silly frock blather on about stuff I'd never heard of before. Consequently, my family never bothered to go to church again as a unit. However, when I was in high school and began dating, I wound up in three circumstances that landed me in various churches. One was a Mormon church, and the other two were both Baptist churches.
I didn't know anything about the Mormons, but when my date to the church dance told me that guys and girls weren't supposed to be closer than the thickness of the Book of Mormon, I knew that this church was whack. I'm very thankful I didn't attend an actual religious service at the Mormon church. As for my Baptist experience, there were two separate occasions at two separate churches. The first, I was invited to attend a Baptist service with a friend of mine from school. Episcopalian services might have been boring as fuck, but at least they had the trappings of tradition about them. The Baptist service involved listening to a bunch of hippies singing folk songs about how much they love Jesus. I was appalled. I thought to myself, "There's no fucking way I'm ever going to come back into a Baptist church."
I was wrong. In my junior year of high school, I wound up dating a Baptist. Big mistake! Well one day this Baptist sweetie of mine calls me up practically in tears claiming that we can't see each other anymore because I'm not a Christian. Desperate to preserve the relationship, I agreed to go to church in order to try and make things work. So I wound up in a second Baptist service which just made me cringe and hate myself. Needless to say, that relationship did not last long.
I had studied enough history to know that I was thoroughly disgusted with Christianity. It was shortly after my relationship with the Baptist that I began experimenting with other religious traditions. I never really wanted to be religious, I just wanted community. Throughout high school I felt like an outcast, and I desperately sought some kind of community through theater, through clubs, and yes, through religion. One year during Hanukkah, some friends of mine were playing a game involving a little spinny toy of some sort. It was a dreidel. I thought it was cool, so I declared to myself that I was going to be a Jew from now on. I never made any formal declaration or conversion. When people asked me what religion I was, I'd simply say "Jewish." But I was Jewish in name only. Not once did I go to temple services, and the only Jews I knew didn't really have anything to do with me. So much for community. I do participate in Jewish holidays periodically, usually High Holidays, Hanukkah, and Pesach, but I'm more Jew-ish than actually Jewish.
Mainstream religions generally didn't make any sense to me, so I started practicing something of my own devising involving the cycles of the moon, the seasons of the year, and spiritual meditation. It turned out that what I started practicing, before I even knew it, was paganism. I had a number of Llewellyn books (I'm embarrassed to admit), and I read Margot Adler's "Drawing Down the Moon" at least three times. It was in this book that I discovered the religion I'd been looking for all along in the first place: Discordianism.
A religion based on chaos? I liked it. Only a year earlier, in 1993, I had graduated high school. The day of my graduation ceremony was also the same day as the theatrical release of "Jurassic Park." Underneath my robe, I was dressed like Dr. Alan Grant. But it wasn't Dr. Grant that interested me, it was chaotician Ian Malcom that captured my imagination. In both the book and the movie, Malcom described chaos theory, which to my young mind was a very elegant way of looking at the universe. I had taken physics my last year in high school and it had religion beat hands down. Physics, combined with chaos theory and this insane pagan tradition called Discordianism, became my new religion. From 1994 onward, I was a dedicated Discordian. But for me, Eris was shorthand for the cosmos as a whole. Sort of like Richard Dawkins' proposal of God™ as a metaphor for the universe. Eris didn't create the universe, Eris is the universe. Carl Sagan summed this idea up very well saying, "if by 'God' one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God." This philosophy worked for me until I started analyzing the absurdity of calling the universe "God."
Despite finding a philosophy/religion that worked for me, I still hadn't found community and I was feeling more isolated than ever. I dropped out of Junior college in 1998 and started working at various jobs. This was the beginning of a very nebulous period in my life. I was struggling with my sexual identity, coming out, then going back into the closet. Since Eris was only a metaphor for the universe, she didn't really help me with my problems. Going back to Carl Sagan, "It does not make sense to pray to the law of gravity." Eris was just a colorful metaphor for science. It was during this time that my philosophy on gods began to change. When I finally came out of the closet for good in 2002, I was completely non-theistic in my philosophy, but I still wasn't calling myself an atheist.
Bad shit happened to me in the summer of 2004 and by fall I was depressed and suicidal. In November I attempted suicide with sleeping pills and aspirin. Recovering from that, I was absolutely certain that there was no god looking out for me and that I was on my own. I still didn't consider myself an atheist though. Maybe there were gods, maybe there weren't. Whatever the case, they didn't have anything to do with me or my life.
In January of 2005, only five weeks after I tried to end my life, things started getting better for me. I decided to go back to community college and finish my transfer degree, I got myself a girlfriend, and I got a job. I decided then that I wasn't going to try and kill myself anymore because the universe was way too weird a place to want to check out of it voluntarily. At this point I was completely non-theistic, but still not an avowed atheist. I still wanted to believe that there was more out there. Maybe not God per se, but some sort of cosmic consciousness that we would all one day ultimately tap into.
It was in December of 2008 that I officially declared myself an atheist and a nihilist. As much as I wanted to believe in some cosmic consciousness and a teleology of the human mind, it no longer made sense. Consciousness is simply a product of synapses firing in the brain, and there's no such thing as absolute morality. Ethics are a product of human civilization and subject to change with time and custom.
I'm still trying to understand the human mind. I'm still curious about how the mind creates religious belief. And I want to know what biological mechanism is responsible for creating gods. How does my mind tick that makes it so different from a believer's mind? These are fascinating questions and I hope that one day I'll have good answers for them.
Carpe Diem,
ellejohara
01 October 2009
Happy October!
Yesterday was my birthday, and I got one of the coolest birthday presents ever: International Blasphemy Day! The National Day of Prayer back in May reignited my atheism blog, and Blasphemy Day inspired me to update a little more regularly than once a month. (But let me tell you, writing my mid-term and final paper took about a month each since it was for my Theory of Religion class.) I'm planning on rebooting my series on Evolution of Religious Thought now that I've graduated and been out of school for the last four months.
Another thing that happened yesterday, I was added to Mojoey's Atheist Blogroll. I first heard about it via Hemant Mehta's Friendly Atheist blog a few days ago when he wrote that the blogroll was fast approaching 1000 members. I didn't make #1000, but I am now on the blogroll somewhere between #1000 and #1025 (give or take a dozen). I'm looking forward to checking out some of the other blogs and maybe making some connections, or even some friends.
Today (if I'm not too sick to do so) I'm going to the first meeting of the academic year for the University of Oregon's Alliance of Happy Atheists. I'm sure there will be much to discuss, especially with Blasphemy Day yesterday. In the meantime, I'm going to rest and drink lots of fluids.
Carpe Diem,
ellejohara
Another thing that happened yesterday, I was added to Mojoey's Atheist Blogroll. I first heard about it via Hemant Mehta's Friendly Atheist blog a few days ago when he wrote that the blogroll was fast approaching 1000 members. I didn't make #1000, but I am now on the blogroll somewhere between #1000 and #1025 (give or take a dozen). I'm looking forward to checking out some of the other blogs and maybe making some connections, or even some friends.
Today (if I'm not too sick to do so) I'm going to the first meeting of the academic year for the University of Oregon's Alliance of Happy Atheists. I'm sure there will be much to discuss, especially with Blasphemy Day yesterday. In the meantime, I'm going to rest and drink lots of fluids.
Carpe Diem,
ellejohara
30 September 2009
Blas fo’ You, Blas fo’ Me
Today is Blasphemy Day. Four years ago today, a Danish newspaper called the Jyllands-Posten dared to publish a handful of cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Well, it wasn’t long before the Islamic world erupted in a violent shitstorm (as the Islamic world is wont to do). See, according to Islam it’s blasphemy to create images (graven or otherwise) of Muhammad or Allah. But here’s the rub: nowhere in the Qur’an does it explicitly or implicitly say that it is taboo to draw a picture of Muhammad. In early Islam, it was not a taboo to depict Muhammad. Persian Islamic art did in fact depict Muhammad without (gasp!) a veil. Culturally speaking though, the Persians have been more level-headed than their insane Semitic neighbors. Much like prudish Christians who carved marble fig leaves for nude classical Greco-Roman sculptures, later Muslims scratched out or painted over the face of Muhammad in early Islamic art.

To blaspheme against Islam, all one has to do is draw a picture of Muhammad, or talk shit about him. Easy. So I’ll move on to Islam’s younger siblings, Christianity and Judaism. It’s also pretty easy in Christianity to blaspheme. According to the New Testament, every sin is forgivable except one: blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. Mark 3:29, Matthew 12:31b, and Luke 12:10b all say the same thing, “whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin....” Well, let’s get this over with...
Christianity seems pretty forgiving. You can be a child molesting man of the cloth, but as long as you say seven “Hail Marys” and feel really bad about what you did, Jesus will forgive you. You could be Pol Pot and it wouldn’t matter. As long as the J-man saves your soul, you get to go to heaven. I never really liked that concept, but then it’s no secret that I’ve never liked Christianity. But despite all its forgiveness, there's still one holiest of holies that remains taboo: blaspheming the holy spirit. (By referring to it in lower case, the audacity!)
How to blaspheme in Judaism: Again, that’s pretty easy. All you have to do is say God’s name, God’s real name. Not Elohim or Adonai, you have to say Yahweh (and saying it in a really snarky way also helps).
Let me just take a moment here to comment on the concept of blasphemy itself. The word comes from the Greek verb φημί which basically means “to say,” prefixed by βλασ-. The verb itself is βλασφημέω. According to Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon (I’m using the Middle Liddell), the origin of the prefix βλασ- isn’t known. It could come from βλάξ, meaning ‘an idiot’ (because presumably only an idiot would speak ill of the gods), or βλάπτω, meaning to stop or (in matters of the mind) to delude. Whatever the origin, blasphemy itself seems to be an almost exclusively Western concept.
So why Blasphemy Day? Four years ago worlds collided between the Western ideals of free speech and the Islamic tradition of “shut your fucking mouth and pray to Allah.” But Blasphemy Day is not about a collection of cartoons, it’s about how blind reverence to antiquated superstitions bring about fear, hatred, and violence. Atheists, free thinkers, rational minded folk, and others are all banding together today to talk shit about these traditions in an attempt to (hopefully) make people ask why these traditions are so revered. Is it because they’re old? Or is it because they’re right? Well, every religion claims to be the right one, and declares all others to be the wrong one, so it couldn’t be the latter. But just because a tradition is, well, traditional, does that mean it should be protected from ridicule?
People are lazy, it’s true. Just as water would rather collect in a pool at the bottom of a hill rather than roll up it, human beings would rather wallow in the safety of the past than struggle forward into the future. Religious traditions are firmly rooted in the past, and very few of them actually seek to look forward to a time when human beings can shake off the shackles of superstition and move forward into rational enlightenment.

There are taboos in Islam against idolatry, but those also exist in Christianity and Judaism as well. Who can forget the story of the Golden Calf? Mooby was its name, right? Anyway, the Islamic shitstorm against the West wasn’t entirely about silly pictures of their child-fucking prophet. (Aisha was Muhammad’s favorite because she was the tightest.) It goes much deeper than that I think. There has to be some sort of broad Islamic resentment toward the West brought on by, I don’t know, the Crusades. But that’s a subject for a later blog post. Let’s stick with blasphemy.Muhammad (right) discusses with earlier Biblical prophets his idea for a boy band.
To blaspheme against Islam, all one has to do is draw a picture of Muhammad, or talk shit about him. Easy. So I’ll move on to Islam’s younger siblings, Christianity and Judaism. It’s also pretty easy in Christianity to blaspheme. According to the New Testament, every sin is forgivable except one: blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. Mark 3:29, Matthew 12:31b, and Luke 12:10b all say the same thing, “whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin....” Well, let’s get this over with...
I don’t believe in the Holy Spirit. It is a holey spirit. You know, full of holes. Oh no, wait... That’s Jesus.
Christianity seems pretty forgiving. You can be a child molesting man of the cloth, but as long as you say seven “Hail Marys” and feel really bad about what you did, Jesus will forgive you. You could be Pol Pot and it wouldn’t matter. As long as the J-man saves your soul, you get to go to heaven. I never really liked that concept, but then it’s no secret that I’ve never liked Christianity. But despite all its forgiveness, there's still one holiest of holies that remains taboo: blaspheming the holy spirit. (By referring to it in lower case, the audacity!)
How to blaspheme in Judaism: Again, that’s pretty easy. All you have to do is say God’s name, God’s real name. Not Elohim or Adonai, you have to say Yahweh (and saying it in a really snarky way also helps).
Let me just take a moment here to comment on the concept of blasphemy itself. The word comes from the Greek verb φημί which basically means “to say,” prefixed by βλασ-. The verb itself is βλασφημέω. According to Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon (I’m using the Middle Liddell), the origin of the prefix βλασ- isn’t known. It could come from βλάξ, meaning ‘an idiot’ (because presumably only an idiot would speak ill of the gods), or βλάπτω, meaning to stop or (in matters of the mind) to delude. Whatever the origin, blasphemy itself seems to be an almost exclusively Western concept.
So why Blasphemy Day? Four years ago worlds collided between the Western ideals of free speech and the Islamic tradition of “shut your fucking mouth and pray to Allah.” But Blasphemy Day is not about a collection of cartoons, it’s about how blind reverence to antiquated superstitions bring about fear, hatred, and violence. Atheists, free thinkers, rational minded folk, and others are all banding together today to talk shit about these traditions in an attempt to (hopefully) make people ask why these traditions are so revered. Is it because they’re old? Or is it because they’re right? Well, every religion claims to be the right one, and declares all others to be the wrong one, so it couldn’t be the latter. But just because a tradition is, well, traditional, does that mean it should be protected from ridicule?
People are lazy, it’s true. Just as water would rather collect in a pool at the bottom of a hill rather than roll up it, human beings would rather wallow in the safety of the past than struggle forward into the future. Religious traditions are firmly rooted in the past, and very few of them actually seek to look forward to a time when human beings can shake off the shackles of superstition and move forward into rational enlightenment.
20 July 2009
Hypocrites on Street Corners
I have a Twitter feed (because I'm either a masochist or an idiot), and a smattering of people I follow are fervent Christians. So fervently Christian are they that they insist on making practically every tweet they make an epistle to Jesus. Now every time I see several tweets in a row all praising their old man in the sky, it makes me think of something I read in the book of Matthew in the New Testament.
It seems to me that many Christians aren't familiar with the New Testament (just the wrath and fury of the Old Testament), so I'll offer a quote from Matthew 6:1-8 from the New Revised Standard Version. In it, Jesus says:
Jesus spells out his instructions on prayer quite concisely in this passage. He was trying to explain to his disciples how to be better Jews (something I'm sure many present-day Christians have a hard time wrapping their brains around). He was fed up, like I am, with all the bullshit displays of faith and piety that, in his relatively conservative view of Judaism, had no business being done.
These days, Christians have the luxury of being a majority religion. So if a Christian Twitters about how awesome Jesus is, they have a plethora of yes-men right behind all agreeing that Jesus is indeed the most awesome thing since sliced bread. Twitter hypocrites, with their superfluous tweets about the glory of Jesus, have gone right back to performing false piety before others in order to be seen by them (just like the J-man said not to do). What are they expecting to obtain by doing that?
Praying should be like masturbation: it's something that should never be spoken of in public, and something you should only do in the privacy of your own bedroom. Yet the world today is filled with Christians who wear their faith on their sleeve for all to see. And truly they have received their reward: scores of like-minded asshats all in a colossal circle-jerk for Jesus. Unfortunately for the rest of us, we're stuck enduring their performances of superficial piety and listening to their hollow prayers. "Oh, look at me praying and giving money to the poor! Oh I'm such a good Christian! God is going to show me so much favor. OooOo!"
I mentioned in one of my own tweets that, as an atheist living in a decidedly Christian nation, I often feel like a non-smoker in a bar filled with cancer-stick huffers. (And remember how all the smokers thought that the non-smokers were all so uppity about lung cancer?) Well, I'm an uppity atheist and I'd love it if you Christians would kindly do your Jesus-jerking in the quietude of your own homes. Your obnoxious displays of faith are making me aggro!
el jo
It seems to me that many Christians aren't familiar with the New Testament (just the wrath and fury of the Old Testament), so I'll offer a quote from Matthew 6:1-8 from the New Revised Standard Version. In it, Jesus says:
"Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.
"So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
"And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
"When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him."
Jesus spells out his instructions on prayer quite concisely in this passage. He was trying to explain to his disciples how to be better Jews (something I'm sure many present-day Christians have a hard time wrapping their brains around). He was fed up, like I am, with all the bullshit displays of faith and piety that, in his relatively conservative view of Judaism, had no business being done.
These days, Christians have the luxury of being a majority religion. So if a Christian Twitters about how awesome Jesus is, they have a plethora of yes-men right behind all agreeing that Jesus is indeed the most awesome thing since sliced bread. Twitter hypocrites, with their superfluous tweets about the glory of Jesus, have gone right back to performing false piety before others in order to be seen by them (just like the J-man said not to do). What are they expecting to obtain by doing that?
Praying should be like masturbation: it's something that should never be spoken of in public, and something you should only do in the privacy of your own bedroom. Yet the world today is filled with Christians who wear their faith on their sleeve for all to see. And truly they have received their reward: scores of like-minded asshats all in a colossal circle-jerk for Jesus. Unfortunately for the rest of us, we're stuck enduring their performances of superficial piety and listening to their hollow prayers. "Oh, look at me praying and giving money to the poor! Oh I'm such a good Christian! God is going to show me so much favor. OooOo!"
I mentioned in one of my own tweets that, as an atheist living in a decidedly Christian nation, I often feel like a non-smoker in a bar filled with cancer-stick huffers. (And remember how all the smokers thought that the non-smokers were all so uppity about lung cancer?) Well, I'm an uppity atheist and I'd love it if you Christians would kindly do your Jesus-jerking in the quietude of your own homes. Your obnoxious displays of faith are making me aggro!
el jo
18 July 2009
The Book of Mor(m)on
On my way home from work last week, I was accosted by two tall, skinny, slightly zitty-faced fellows with ties on their chests and books in their hands. "Fuck." I thought to myself, "Mormons." I paused my iPod, which had been blasting Nine Inch Nails through my deluxe noise-reducing headphones (fuck ear buds), and gave them my undivided attention. They gave me their little spiel, which was good actually since the extent of my knowledge of Mormonism came from South Park. The slightly taller and slightly zittier of the two boys agreed to give me a copy of the Book of Mormon if I in turn agreed to ask God™ for forgiveness or something when I was finished reading it. I told him I wasn't going to ask for his god's forgiveness since I don't believe in his god (or any god for that matter), but I did promise him that I would actually read the thing. He agreed to my terms and handed me a copy of their good book, but not before jotting down a phone number on the front page.
I did in fact begin reading the Book of Mormon just as I promised, although I haven't yet announced the fact on my Goodreads profile. I'm almost done with 1 Nephi and I've already got issues with this book. (Well, I had issues with the book before as well. I just hadn't read it. Like I'm going to go out and buy a copy of the Book of Mormon. Pfft!) So I did what any respectable atheist religious scholar would do, I consulted additional sources to find out about all the wonderfully hilarious anachronisms and plot holes (for lack of a better term) contained within the Book of Mormon.
See, I'm naturally skeptical of any religious text that is considered secondary source material. That means I definitely have a problem with translations. I have a Qur'an in Arabic (and I can read it in that language). I have a New Testament in Greek (and I can read that too). I don't have a Hebrew Bible (yet), which I guess is okay since I can't actually read Hebrew (yet). But anyway, Joseph Smith, and the Mormons, claim that the Book of Mormon was translated from brass plates (though some say gold) inscribed with "reformed" Egyptian hieroglyphs. Who the fuck knows what "reformed" Egyptian is, but if it's anything like regular Egyptian it would take a hell of a lot of brass (or gold) plates to be able to convey all the information contained in one book of the Book of Mormon, let alone all of them.
As a language nerd, I'm fascinated by the way people string words together. It's clear that Joseph Smith was pretty familiar with the King James version of the Bible, but very likely neither Egyptian (reformed or not), or Hebrew. So even without source material to investigate, read that as the brass (or gold) plates, it's still possible to piece together information about the source from the translation. My conclusion, and the conclusion of any sane, educated adult, is that the Book of Mormon was little more than a fabrication by a con man who wanted to invent his own religion in order to justify his interest in polyamory.
The Book of Mormon is bullshit, but I'm going to finish reading it anyway. I mean, I can always use a good laugh.
el jo
I did in fact begin reading the Book of Mormon just as I promised, although I haven't yet announced the fact on my Goodreads profile. I'm almost done with 1 Nephi and I've already got issues with this book. (Well, I had issues with the book before as well. I just hadn't read it. Like I'm going to go out and buy a copy of the Book of Mormon. Pfft!) So I did what any respectable atheist religious scholar would do, I consulted additional sources to find out about all the wonderfully hilarious anachronisms and plot holes (for lack of a better term) contained within the Book of Mormon.
See, I'm naturally skeptical of any religious text that is considered secondary source material. That means I definitely have a problem with translations. I have a Qur'an in Arabic (and I can read it in that language). I have a New Testament in Greek (and I can read that too). I don't have a Hebrew Bible (yet), which I guess is okay since I can't actually read Hebrew (yet). But anyway, Joseph Smith, and the Mormons, claim that the Book of Mormon was translated from brass plates (though some say gold) inscribed with "reformed" Egyptian hieroglyphs. Who the fuck knows what "reformed" Egyptian is, but if it's anything like regular Egyptian it would take a hell of a lot of brass (or gold) plates to be able to convey all the information contained in one book of the Book of Mormon, let alone all of them.
As a language nerd, I'm fascinated by the way people string words together. It's clear that Joseph Smith was pretty familiar with the King James version of the Bible, but very likely neither Egyptian (reformed or not), or Hebrew. So even without source material to investigate, read that as the brass (or gold) plates, it's still possible to piece together information about the source from the translation. My conclusion, and the conclusion of any sane, educated adult, is that the Book of Mormon was little more than a fabrication by a con man who wanted to invent his own religion in order to justify his interest in polyamory.
The Book of Mormon is bullshit, but I'm going to finish reading it anyway. I mean, I can always use a good laugh.
el jo
09 June 2009
Grey Matter Origins of Religious Thought
Here is my final paper for my Theory of Religion class. It's also the final paper of my academic career at the University of Oregon. (Come to me Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies!)
This seminar has introduced me to a number of different thinkers and theories of religion ranging from early 19th century writers Edward Burnett Tylor and James Frazier, to contemporary scholars such as Clifford Geertz and J. Z. Smith. Since my primary interest in religion is religious thought rather than religious institutions, I’ve leaned toward more functionalist theories of religion as opposed to substantive theories. The functionalist approach often involves reducing religion to a core function in human society while substantive theories look at religion as a complex system deserving to be studied in all its myriad aspects. Among the theories we have studied in this seminar, functionalist theorists include Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim, and Sigmund Freud. For Marx, religion is little more than a tool of oppression. Durkheim viewed religion as a method in which society can worship itself. Religious thought, in Freud’s opinion, was akin to a mental delusion, and would eventually be supplanted by scientific rationalism. While Freud’s views of religion might be construed, especially among the religious, as critical or even disparaging, I found some of them useful as a jumping off point to further study how religious thought could be viewed as a product of the human mind. In this paper I want to look at the origins and development of religious thought in the context of psychology and cognitive science by reviewing Freud’s theory of religion, one of Freud’s academic influences William James and his psychological approach to religious thought, and contemporary scholar Pascal Boyer and his cognitive theory of religion. I hope that after reading these authors I might develop a better understanding of the mechanisms which drive human beings toward religious thought.
In his book The Future of an Illusion, Sigmund Freud sums up the task of religion into three points: religion must temper human fears of the natural world, reconcile human fears of death and the unknown, and compensate individuals for enduring social limitations imposed by civilization (Freud 22). I want to focus on these points primarily as they relate to the psychology of religious thought rather than the sociology of religious institutions. Freud argues that “every individual is virtually an enemy to civilization” because human instinctual behavior is naturally destructive to society (Freud 6). It is the resentment felt toward civilization because of this repression, as well as the fear of nature, death, and the unknown, which creates psychological distress. This distress then drives human beings to escape emotionally by creating religious thought. Using his oedipal complex model, Freud proposes that the mind invents godlike father figures to create a sense of protection from natural fears just as a fearful child would look to his father for protection. Freud claims that this escape mechanism is thus the product of an infantile mind and he likens religious thought to the obsessional neurosis of children (Freud 55). Religion itself is little more than a sociological tool for placating resentment felt toward civilization. Religious thought on the other hand is a psychological tool for abating fear and neuroses created as a result of repression. Freud then suggests that it is simply education and intellectual development which will eventually allow human beings to slough off the shackles of religious thought and move toward an enlightened, secular society. Freud’s theory of religion clearly comes from the school of nineteenth century social evolution. Despite the shortcomings of Freud’s theory, it inspired me to delve deeper into a psychological origin of religious thought and turn to an earlier contemporary of Freud, psychologist William James.
William James was an American psychologist who lectured on the subject of religion in the early years of the twentieth century. His lectures were compiled in a collection titled The Varieties of Religious Experience. A cursory glance at James’ work reveals a superficial similarity with Freud regarding religion and neurosis. James seems to argue that a certain degree of neurosis is necessary for an individual to hold religious beliefs. Indeed, “[i]f there were such a thing as inspiration from a higher realm, it might well be that the neurotic temperament would furnish the chief condition of the requisite receptivity” to religious beliefs (James 20). Initially it seems as though James holds a similar opinion of religion as Freud. However, James comes at the study of religion from a different angle than Freud by making a distinction between the existential judgement of religion and the spiritual judgement of it. Existential judgements can include questions such as the origin of religious thought while spiritual judgements address the value of religion toward individuals or society. This distinction is similar to the difference between a functional theory versus a substantive theory of religion. James favors the spiritual approach, and this preference marks the key difference between his theory of religion and Freud’s theory. Although religious thinkers “have been liable to obsessions and fixed ideas; and frequently they have fallen into trances, heard voices, seen visions, and presented all sorts of peculiarities which are ordinarily classed as pathological,” James argues that these psychological states are necessary for the development of religion and religious thought. (James 7).
James’ definition of religion is “the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine” (James 24). While Freud proposes that religion is a neurotic reaction to natural and sociological phenomena, James argues that religious thought is intimately personal and subjective from one person to another. Using some of his religiously-minded contemporaries such as George Fox, founder of the Quaker movement, as examples, James argues that “when a superior intellect and a psychopathic temperament coalesce … in the same individual, we have the best possible condition for the kind of effective genius that gets into the biographical dictionaries” (James 19). Only a select few individuals will possess the right combination of intelligence and neurosis which when combined create profound religious thought. These individuals then transmit their religious experiences to the masses, establishing the institutions of religion as we know them today. However, the complex interaction between intelligence and neurosis suggests that “there is no ground for assuming a simple abstract ‘religious emotion’ to exist as a distinct elementary mental affectation by itself, present in every religious experience without exception” (James 22). James proposes that religious thought does indeed have its origin in the mind, but he limits it to only a handful of individuals who possess the right balance of intelligence and neurosis. The remaining masses who do not possess this proper balance can only follow blindly under the guidance of these individuals. It seems illogical to me that only a tiny percentage of people according to James are capable of having religious thought. A contemporary author, Pascal Boyer, offers a theory that all human beings are capable of religious thought and not merely a scarce few.
Pascal Boyer is a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and in his book Religion Explained, he proposes a theory that religious thought stems from a natural evolutionary process. While Freud and James both sought to explain religion as a psychological reaction to the world, Boyer offers a theory that religion is a byproduct of natural cognitive processes in the human mind. Boyer’s cognitive theory of religion is by no means easy to summarize succinctly, but I will do my best. According to Boyer, “the mind does not work like one general ‘let’s-review-the-facts-and-get-an-explanation’ device. Rather, it comprises lots of specialized explanatory devices, more properly called inference systems, each of which is adapted to particular kinds of events and automatically suggests explanations for these events” (Boyer 17). These inference systems run so deep in the human mind that people are not consciously aware of them. The mind also uses a system of discrete abstractions, called ontological categories, so that “seeing or otherwise perceiving an object activates a particular set of inference systems” (Boyer 99). Thus the mind uses ontological categories and inference systems to help explain all kinds of different phenomena, and religious thought is one type of inference system among many which humans use to explain things. Humans can also tag special exceptions to objects within these ontological categories that describe counterintuitive phenomena: that is to say, supernatural phenomena. Boyer provides several examples of counterintuitive tags, but the one that stuck with me was an example of an ebony tree which is just like a normal tree except that it can hear conversations spoken beneath it.
The human mind also has a strong tendency to anthropomorphize non-human things. “That is, we tend to interpret even very faint cues in terms of human traits; we see faces in the clouds and human bodies in trees and mountains” (Boyer 143). The human tendency to anthropomorphize things is a natural aspect of cognitive processes. However, an unintended byproduct of this process is that humans also tend to assume human agency in natural phenomena. Boyer refers to this as “agency hyperdetection.” Agency hyperdetection is the cognitive process that helps animals, and human beings, stay aware of their surroundings in the event a predator comes near. However, in cases of counterintuitive (supernatural) phenomena, agencies becomes the disembodied minds of gods and spirits. Despite the mind’s readiness to create gods, spirits, and supernatural phenomena, “[t]here is no religious instinct, no specific inclination in the mind, no particular disposition for these concepts, no special religion center in the brain, and religious persons are not different from nonreligious ones in essential cognitive functions” (Boyer 329). According to Boyer’s theory, religious thought is instead a byproduct of natural cognitive functions. Boyer presents an excellent line of reasoning as to how human beings create religious thought, but the question of why people have religious thought remains unanswered.
I must admit that I tend to favor functionalist theories of religion, though I do my best to avoid blatant reductionism. Freud’s theory is definitely functional reductionist, but despite that it did provide me with a profound starting point in my own personal quest to understand religious thought. By looking at Freud’s contemporary William James, I was able to see how one could use the same argument of religion as a neurosis and turn it into something positive. James’ idea that religious thought is a delicate balance between rational and irrational led him to suggest that there are a handful of individuals who can have religious thought without being considered ignorant, neurotic, or delusional. Both William James and Pascal Boyer suggest that there is no single part of the mind responsible for religious thought, but Boyer’s cognitive theory expanded James’ theory, thus giving religion to everyone. However, Boyer’s conclusion that religion is little more that a byproduct of evolutionary biology almost seems as reductionistic as Freud’s claim that religion is a product of the oedipal complex. Despite this, I’m still far more comfortable with Boyer’s theory of religion rather than Freud’s theory because Boyer has cognitive science, neurobiology, and evolutionary biology to support his claims. According to Boyer’s theory, all individuals have the capacity to hold religious thoughts, yet not everyone does. People hold on to religious thought only when there is a need to do so. Even if religious thought is little more than a cognitive hiccup, it still remains a powerful force in the world today. I think that as long as there are still unanswered questions about life in the world, there will always be a need for religious thought.
Works Cited
Boyer, Pascal. Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. New York: Basic Books, 2001.
Freud, Sigmund. The Future of an Illusion. Tr. James Strachey. Standard Edition. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1961.
James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York: Touchstone, 2004.
This seminar has introduced me to a number of different thinkers and theories of religion ranging from early 19th century writers Edward Burnett Tylor and James Frazier, to contemporary scholars such as Clifford Geertz and J. Z. Smith. Since my primary interest in religion is religious thought rather than religious institutions, I’ve leaned toward more functionalist theories of religion as opposed to substantive theories. The functionalist approach often involves reducing religion to a core function in human society while substantive theories look at religion as a complex system deserving to be studied in all its myriad aspects. Among the theories we have studied in this seminar, functionalist theorists include Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim, and Sigmund Freud. For Marx, religion is little more than a tool of oppression. Durkheim viewed religion as a method in which society can worship itself. Religious thought, in Freud’s opinion, was akin to a mental delusion, and would eventually be supplanted by scientific rationalism. While Freud’s views of religion might be construed, especially among the religious, as critical or even disparaging, I found some of them useful as a jumping off point to further study how religious thought could be viewed as a product of the human mind. In this paper I want to look at the origins and development of religious thought in the context of psychology and cognitive science by reviewing Freud’s theory of religion, one of Freud’s academic influences William James and his psychological approach to religious thought, and contemporary scholar Pascal Boyer and his cognitive theory of religion. I hope that after reading these authors I might develop a better understanding of the mechanisms which drive human beings toward religious thought.
In his book The Future of an Illusion, Sigmund Freud sums up the task of religion into three points: religion must temper human fears of the natural world, reconcile human fears of death and the unknown, and compensate individuals for enduring social limitations imposed by civilization (Freud 22). I want to focus on these points primarily as they relate to the psychology of religious thought rather than the sociology of religious institutions. Freud argues that “every individual is virtually an enemy to civilization” because human instinctual behavior is naturally destructive to society (Freud 6). It is the resentment felt toward civilization because of this repression, as well as the fear of nature, death, and the unknown, which creates psychological distress. This distress then drives human beings to escape emotionally by creating religious thought. Using his oedipal complex model, Freud proposes that the mind invents godlike father figures to create a sense of protection from natural fears just as a fearful child would look to his father for protection. Freud claims that this escape mechanism is thus the product of an infantile mind and he likens religious thought to the obsessional neurosis of children (Freud 55). Religion itself is little more than a sociological tool for placating resentment felt toward civilization. Religious thought on the other hand is a psychological tool for abating fear and neuroses created as a result of repression. Freud then suggests that it is simply education and intellectual development which will eventually allow human beings to slough off the shackles of religious thought and move toward an enlightened, secular society. Freud’s theory of religion clearly comes from the school of nineteenth century social evolution. Despite the shortcomings of Freud’s theory, it inspired me to delve deeper into a psychological origin of religious thought and turn to an earlier contemporary of Freud, psychologist William James.
William James was an American psychologist who lectured on the subject of religion in the early years of the twentieth century. His lectures were compiled in a collection titled The Varieties of Religious Experience. A cursory glance at James’ work reveals a superficial similarity with Freud regarding religion and neurosis. James seems to argue that a certain degree of neurosis is necessary for an individual to hold religious beliefs. Indeed, “[i]f there were such a thing as inspiration from a higher realm, it might well be that the neurotic temperament would furnish the chief condition of the requisite receptivity” to religious beliefs (James 20). Initially it seems as though James holds a similar opinion of religion as Freud. However, James comes at the study of religion from a different angle than Freud by making a distinction between the existential judgement of religion and the spiritual judgement of it. Existential judgements can include questions such as the origin of religious thought while spiritual judgements address the value of religion toward individuals or society. This distinction is similar to the difference between a functional theory versus a substantive theory of religion. James favors the spiritual approach, and this preference marks the key difference between his theory of religion and Freud’s theory. Although religious thinkers “have been liable to obsessions and fixed ideas; and frequently they have fallen into trances, heard voices, seen visions, and presented all sorts of peculiarities which are ordinarily classed as pathological,” James argues that these psychological states are necessary for the development of religion and religious thought. (James 7).
James’ definition of religion is “the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine” (James 24). While Freud proposes that religion is a neurotic reaction to natural and sociological phenomena, James argues that religious thought is intimately personal and subjective from one person to another. Using some of his religiously-minded contemporaries such as George Fox, founder of the Quaker movement, as examples, James argues that “when a superior intellect and a psychopathic temperament coalesce … in the same individual, we have the best possible condition for the kind of effective genius that gets into the biographical dictionaries” (James 19). Only a select few individuals will possess the right combination of intelligence and neurosis which when combined create profound religious thought. These individuals then transmit their religious experiences to the masses, establishing the institutions of religion as we know them today. However, the complex interaction between intelligence and neurosis suggests that “there is no ground for assuming a simple abstract ‘religious emotion’ to exist as a distinct elementary mental affectation by itself, present in every religious experience without exception” (James 22). James proposes that religious thought does indeed have its origin in the mind, but he limits it to only a handful of individuals who possess the right balance of intelligence and neurosis. The remaining masses who do not possess this proper balance can only follow blindly under the guidance of these individuals. It seems illogical to me that only a tiny percentage of people according to James are capable of having religious thought. A contemporary author, Pascal Boyer, offers a theory that all human beings are capable of religious thought and not merely a scarce few.
Pascal Boyer is a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and in his book Religion Explained, he proposes a theory that religious thought stems from a natural evolutionary process. While Freud and James both sought to explain religion as a psychological reaction to the world, Boyer offers a theory that religion is a byproduct of natural cognitive processes in the human mind. Boyer’s cognitive theory of religion is by no means easy to summarize succinctly, but I will do my best. According to Boyer, “the mind does not work like one general ‘let’s-review-the-facts-and-get-an-explanation’ device. Rather, it comprises lots of specialized explanatory devices, more properly called inference systems, each of which is adapted to particular kinds of events and automatically suggests explanations for these events” (Boyer 17). These inference systems run so deep in the human mind that people are not consciously aware of them. The mind also uses a system of discrete abstractions, called ontological categories, so that “seeing or otherwise perceiving an object activates a particular set of inference systems” (Boyer 99). Thus the mind uses ontological categories and inference systems to help explain all kinds of different phenomena, and religious thought is one type of inference system among many which humans use to explain things. Humans can also tag special exceptions to objects within these ontological categories that describe counterintuitive phenomena: that is to say, supernatural phenomena. Boyer provides several examples of counterintuitive tags, but the one that stuck with me was an example of an ebony tree which is just like a normal tree except that it can hear conversations spoken beneath it.
The human mind also has a strong tendency to anthropomorphize non-human things. “That is, we tend to interpret even very faint cues in terms of human traits; we see faces in the clouds and human bodies in trees and mountains” (Boyer 143). The human tendency to anthropomorphize things is a natural aspect of cognitive processes. However, an unintended byproduct of this process is that humans also tend to assume human agency in natural phenomena. Boyer refers to this as “agency hyperdetection.” Agency hyperdetection is the cognitive process that helps animals, and human beings, stay aware of their surroundings in the event a predator comes near. However, in cases of counterintuitive (supernatural) phenomena, agencies becomes the disembodied minds of gods and spirits. Despite the mind’s readiness to create gods, spirits, and supernatural phenomena, “[t]here is no religious instinct, no specific inclination in the mind, no particular disposition for these concepts, no special religion center in the brain, and religious persons are not different from nonreligious ones in essential cognitive functions” (Boyer 329). According to Boyer’s theory, religious thought is instead a byproduct of natural cognitive functions. Boyer presents an excellent line of reasoning as to how human beings create religious thought, but the question of why people have religious thought remains unanswered.
I must admit that I tend to favor functionalist theories of religion, though I do my best to avoid blatant reductionism. Freud’s theory is definitely functional reductionist, but despite that it did provide me with a profound starting point in my own personal quest to understand religious thought. By looking at Freud’s contemporary William James, I was able to see how one could use the same argument of religion as a neurosis and turn it into something positive. James’ idea that religious thought is a delicate balance between rational and irrational led him to suggest that there are a handful of individuals who can have religious thought without being considered ignorant, neurotic, or delusional. Both William James and Pascal Boyer suggest that there is no single part of the mind responsible for religious thought, but Boyer’s cognitive theory expanded James’ theory, thus giving religion to everyone. However, Boyer’s conclusion that religion is little more that a byproduct of evolutionary biology almost seems as reductionistic as Freud’s claim that religion is a product of the oedipal complex. Despite this, I’m still far more comfortable with Boyer’s theory of religion rather than Freud’s theory because Boyer has cognitive science, neurobiology, and evolutionary biology to support his claims. According to Boyer’s theory, all individuals have the capacity to hold religious thoughts, yet not everyone does. People hold on to religious thought only when there is a need to do so. Even if religious thought is little more than a cognitive hiccup, it still remains a powerful force in the world today. I think that as long as there are still unanswered questions about life in the world, there will always be a need for religious thought.
Works Cited
Boyer, Pascal. Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. New York: Basic Books, 2001.
Freud, Sigmund. The Future of an Illusion. Tr. James Strachey. Standard Edition. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1961.
James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York: Touchstone, 2004.
15 May 2009
Freud and Geertz: Theories of Religion
[This is my midterm paper for my theory of religion class. Enjoy! ~el jo]
There are probably as many theories of religion as there are religions themselves. These theories can be categorized into various types, among which include functionalist, substantive, realist, anti-realist, individualist, and collectivist. Functionalist theories are often, though not always, reductionist in nature. These theories claim that religion in human society can be distilled down to a core function or purpose. Sigmund Freud’s theory of religion falls into this category. An alternative to the functionalist approach would be a substantive theory which seeks to understand religion on the basis of beliefs, customs, and rituals. Clifford Geertz’s approach to religion would fall into this category. Realist and anti-realist theories, the belief or non-belief in gods respectively, can play an important role in the study of religion. However it is possible, as I will demonstrate with Geertz’s work, that a belief or non-belief in gods is not necessarily required in analyzing religion as it pertains to the study of culture. Individualist theories look at religion as it relates to a single person while collectivist theories address groups or even whole societies. Freud’s theory is largely individualistic though he does offer his insight into group dynamics. Geertz, as a cultural anthropologist, looks at religion from a collectivist perspective, analyzing religion by how it affects a population. While there doesn’t seem to be a ‘correct’ way to study religion, there are some approaches that seem to work better than others. In this paper I will discuss the theories of religion proposed by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz, and show that a substantive theory of religion is perhaps more beneficial to the study of religion than a reductionist approach.
In Freud’s book “Totem and Taboo,” he speculates on the practices of early humans by expanding on J. G. Frazier’s theory of totemism. In short, totemism is a tribal identification with a particular plant or animal which is sometimes ritually sacrificed. According to Freud, it is the guilt of a primeval patricide that drives a tribal culture to practice totemism. The dead patriarch is symbolized in animal form and ritually killed in a reenactment of the original murder. This guilt leads the tribe to enact specific rules of morality in the form of taboos, beginning with the taboo against murder. Freud argues that taboos are necessary for the preservation of civilization. He goes on to explain that the establishment of cultural taboos creates a kind of cognitive dissonance in humans between what an individual instinctively desires and what society will permit. This dissonance creates neuroses and socially destructive behavior thus making the individual a threat to civilization. A civilization which ignores taboos, such as the taboo against murder, would fall very quickly. Therefore “the principal task of civilization … is to defend us against nature” (Freud 19). Not just the natural world, but our natural tendencies toward destructive behavior.
If it is the natural propensity for individuals to work against society, then it is necessary for society to find a tool to defend itself against the individual. Freud believes that generally the masses are “lazy and unintelligent” (Freud 8), preferring to indulge in base instincts than work and educate themselves. Freud, a proponent of the Victorian idea of social evolution, argues that scientific reasoning would be a beneficial tool in defending civilization. However, given his low opinion of human behavior, he seems to suggest that religion is a required intermediate step. Religious thought is created by individuals in a society as a result of the psychological conflict between the instinctual self, the id, and society, the superego. Religion is therefore all in the mind. Freud’s threefold function of religion proposes that religion “must exorcize the terrors of nature, [it] must reconcile men to the cruelty of Fate, particularly as it is shown in death, and [it] must compensate … for the sufferings and privations which a civilized life in common has imposed … ” (Freud 22). Religion arose out of a need to preserve civilized society though it’s clear that Freud does not look highly upon it. He proposes a very functional reductionist theory that likens religion to a delusion. In his book “The Future of an Illusion,” he states that “[r]eligion [is] the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity; like the obsessional neurosis of children, it arose out of the Oedipus complex, out of the relation to the father” (Freud 55). For Freud, religion is an awkward intermediate step toward an ultimate goal of a scientifically rational civilization free from the neuroses caused by archaic religious practices and beliefs.
Freud’s arguments regarding the origins of religious practice are purely speculative given that there is no way of knowing what brought early humans out of their “primordial animal condition” as he puts it and into civilized society (Freud 13). He uses no real world evidence to support his claims and his ideas on religious thought are largely discredited today. Freud’s armchair anthropology is an antiquated product of eurocentric 19th century thinking and in my opinion there is very little to salvage from Freud’s theory of religion. However, his proposal that religion is a result of psychological conflict suggests to me a cognitive source for religious thought. This is an idea that I will address in my next paper. For now, I will go on to discuss Geertz’s approach to religion.
Clifford Geertz doesn’t actually provide a direct theory of religion. Instead he sees religion as a tool to be used by cultural anthropologists in studying a given culture. Geertz proposes that in order to interpret culture and the symbols in which culture puts value, it is necessary not only to describe the symbols themselves, but the context in which these symbols are found. He calls this method “thick description.” In his book “The Interpretation of Cultures,” Geertz provides a definition of religion that suits his model of thick description. His definition states that religion is “a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, persuasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions in such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic” (Geertz 90). This is a rather wordy definition which requires a bit of explanation. Fortunately Geertz is perfectly willing to provide it. A symbol is a tangible representation of an abstract concept. Symbols work to establish the ethos of a culture, its “tone, character … , moral and aesthetic style” and its world view, “the picture they have of the way things in actuality are …” (Geertz 89). Religious symbols then work to create moods, fleeting emotional states in individuals, and motivations, deliberate habits or rituals, which offer individuals a sense of religious structure and cultural cohesion. This structure is then reified through traditions that are passed down from generation to generation creating a sense that it has always existed.
Geertz offers a threefold function of religion that is very similar to Freud’s. According to Geertz, religion provides an individual or a society a way to respond to the questions of bafflement (exorcize the terrors of nature), suffering (reconcile the cruelty of fate), and evil (compensation for the morally just). Geertz’s third function doesn’t quite directly translate to Freud’s third function without a bit of justification. Freud’s third function of religion compensates the individual for willingly submitting to a moral code while Geertz’s third function describes evil as a violation of established taboos. They are opposite approaches to morality, but they offer a similar message. Religion provides humans the blueprint for proper grieving in response to suffering and evil. Religion can also address moral or ethical problems that no scientific theory or mathematical equation can. Science can provide a world view, but it offers no ethos. It can’t explain the existence of evil or why humans suffer. Religion can provide both world view and ethos.
One of the features in Geertz’s anthropological approach to religion is that the “absolute truth” of a given religion is not relevant in the study of a particular culture. Geertz avoids the realist versus anti-realist debate by taking the existence or non-existence of gods out of the picture entirely. This allows anthropologists to use religion strictly as a tool for the analysis of culture. For Geertz, absolute truth is best left to the philosophers and theologians. While this is beneficial for the study of cultures, it leaves a large hole in the study of the religion itself, namely “Where does religion come from?” Geertz doesn’t really address the issue of “first cause” in religious thought. As far as Geertz is concerned, religion comes from tradition. Just as the existence or non-existence of god is irrelevant in cultural anthropology, the origins of religious thought are largely irrelevant. What matters is how the symbols, beliefs, and customs help to shape a given culture. So Geertz’s non-theory theory of religion works tremendously well in analyzing the customs and behaviors of cultures around the world. He explains why religious beliefs and practices are important to a culture and he describes how rituals are performed. For Geertz, there is no need to look into the origins of religious thought because that is not critical to the understanding of culture, only to the understanding of religion.
Geertz’s “thick description” of religion is very beneficial in analyzing how a shared set of beliefs and practices shape and define a culture. While Freud dismisses religious practices as little more than neurotic aberrations with little meaning other than to give the practitioner a placebo for his neurosis, Geertz places a tremendous amount of importance on religious beliefs and practices and how these relate to a given population. Freud claims that religion is simply an awkward intermediate step along the road to something better and far more useful to humanity. This view has understandably angered those who are religious. Geertz’s approach is more sympathetic to the religiously-minded as it does its best not place any value judgements on the beliefs and practices of a culture. However one of the major drawbacks to Geertz’s approach to religion is his neglect in addressing the origins of religious thought. Though he defines religion very well, his claim that religion is a product of tradition leaves, to paraphrase his analogy, a tower of turtles with nothing to stand on. Geertz’s non-theory of religion is a tremendously useful tool for analyzing culture, but not so great when it comes to analyzing religion itself. While a substantive approach is useful in studying the myriad traditions, beliefs, and practices of religions around the world and the cultures that practice them, a functional theory is perhaps necessary when it comes to the question of what caused religious thought.
Bibliography
Freud, Sigmund. The Future of an Illusion. Tr. James Strachey. Standard Edition. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1961.
Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books Inc., 1973.
Pals, Daniel. Eight Theories of Religion. Second Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
There are probably as many theories of religion as there are religions themselves. These theories can be categorized into various types, among which include functionalist, substantive, realist, anti-realist, individualist, and collectivist. Functionalist theories are often, though not always, reductionist in nature. These theories claim that religion in human society can be distilled down to a core function or purpose. Sigmund Freud’s theory of religion falls into this category. An alternative to the functionalist approach would be a substantive theory which seeks to understand religion on the basis of beliefs, customs, and rituals. Clifford Geertz’s approach to religion would fall into this category. Realist and anti-realist theories, the belief or non-belief in gods respectively, can play an important role in the study of religion. However it is possible, as I will demonstrate with Geertz’s work, that a belief or non-belief in gods is not necessarily required in analyzing religion as it pertains to the study of culture. Individualist theories look at religion as it relates to a single person while collectivist theories address groups or even whole societies. Freud’s theory is largely individualistic though he does offer his insight into group dynamics. Geertz, as a cultural anthropologist, looks at religion from a collectivist perspective, analyzing religion by how it affects a population. While there doesn’t seem to be a ‘correct’ way to study religion, there are some approaches that seem to work better than others. In this paper I will discuss the theories of religion proposed by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz, and show that a substantive theory of religion is perhaps more beneficial to the study of religion than a reductionist approach.
In Freud’s book “Totem and Taboo,” he speculates on the practices of early humans by expanding on J. G. Frazier’s theory of totemism. In short, totemism is a tribal identification with a particular plant or animal which is sometimes ritually sacrificed. According to Freud, it is the guilt of a primeval patricide that drives a tribal culture to practice totemism. The dead patriarch is symbolized in animal form and ritually killed in a reenactment of the original murder. This guilt leads the tribe to enact specific rules of morality in the form of taboos, beginning with the taboo against murder. Freud argues that taboos are necessary for the preservation of civilization. He goes on to explain that the establishment of cultural taboos creates a kind of cognitive dissonance in humans between what an individual instinctively desires and what society will permit. This dissonance creates neuroses and socially destructive behavior thus making the individual a threat to civilization. A civilization which ignores taboos, such as the taboo against murder, would fall very quickly. Therefore “the principal task of civilization … is to defend us against nature” (Freud 19). Not just the natural world, but our natural tendencies toward destructive behavior.
If it is the natural propensity for individuals to work against society, then it is necessary for society to find a tool to defend itself against the individual. Freud believes that generally the masses are “lazy and unintelligent” (Freud 8), preferring to indulge in base instincts than work and educate themselves. Freud, a proponent of the Victorian idea of social evolution, argues that scientific reasoning would be a beneficial tool in defending civilization. However, given his low opinion of human behavior, he seems to suggest that religion is a required intermediate step. Religious thought is created by individuals in a society as a result of the psychological conflict between the instinctual self, the id, and society, the superego. Religion is therefore all in the mind. Freud’s threefold function of religion proposes that religion “must exorcize the terrors of nature, [it] must reconcile men to the cruelty of Fate, particularly as it is shown in death, and [it] must compensate … for the sufferings and privations which a civilized life in common has imposed … ” (Freud 22). Religion arose out of a need to preserve civilized society though it’s clear that Freud does not look highly upon it. He proposes a very functional reductionist theory that likens religion to a delusion. In his book “The Future of an Illusion,” he states that “[r]eligion [is] the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity; like the obsessional neurosis of children, it arose out of the Oedipus complex, out of the relation to the father” (Freud 55). For Freud, religion is an awkward intermediate step toward an ultimate goal of a scientifically rational civilization free from the neuroses caused by archaic religious practices and beliefs.
Freud’s arguments regarding the origins of religious practice are purely speculative given that there is no way of knowing what brought early humans out of their “primordial animal condition” as he puts it and into civilized society (Freud 13). He uses no real world evidence to support his claims and his ideas on religious thought are largely discredited today. Freud’s armchair anthropology is an antiquated product of eurocentric 19th century thinking and in my opinion there is very little to salvage from Freud’s theory of religion. However, his proposal that religion is a result of psychological conflict suggests to me a cognitive source for religious thought. This is an idea that I will address in my next paper. For now, I will go on to discuss Geertz’s approach to religion.
Clifford Geertz doesn’t actually provide a direct theory of religion. Instead he sees religion as a tool to be used by cultural anthropologists in studying a given culture. Geertz proposes that in order to interpret culture and the symbols in which culture puts value, it is necessary not only to describe the symbols themselves, but the context in which these symbols are found. He calls this method “thick description.” In his book “The Interpretation of Cultures,” Geertz provides a definition of religion that suits his model of thick description. His definition states that religion is “a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, persuasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions in such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic” (Geertz 90). This is a rather wordy definition which requires a bit of explanation. Fortunately Geertz is perfectly willing to provide it. A symbol is a tangible representation of an abstract concept. Symbols work to establish the ethos of a culture, its “tone, character … , moral and aesthetic style” and its world view, “the picture they have of the way things in actuality are …” (Geertz 89). Religious symbols then work to create moods, fleeting emotional states in individuals, and motivations, deliberate habits or rituals, which offer individuals a sense of religious structure and cultural cohesion. This structure is then reified through traditions that are passed down from generation to generation creating a sense that it has always existed.
Geertz offers a threefold function of religion that is very similar to Freud’s. According to Geertz, religion provides an individual or a society a way to respond to the questions of bafflement (exorcize the terrors of nature), suffering (reconcile the cruelty of fate), and evil (compensation for the morally just). Geertz’s third function doesn’t quite directly translate to Freud’s third function without a bit of justification. Freud’s third function of religion compensates the individual for willingly submitting to a moral code while Geertz’s third function describes evil as a violation of established taboos. They are opposite approaches to morality, but they offer a similar message. Religion provides humans the blueprint for proper grieving in response to suffering and evil. Religion can also address moral or ethical problems that no scientific theory or mathematical equation can. Science can provide a world view, but it offers no ethos. It can’t explain the existence of evil or why humans suffer. Religion can provide both world view and ethos.
One of the features in Geertz’s anthropological approach to religion is that the “absolute truth” of a given religion is not relevant in the study of a particular culture. Geertz avoids the realist versus anti-realist debate by taking the existence or non-existence of gods out of the picture entirely. This allows anthropologists to use religion strictly as a tool for the analysis of culture. For Geertz, absolute truth is best left to the philosophers and theologians. While this is beneficial for the study of cultures, it leaves a large hole in the study of the religion itself, namely “Where does religion come from?” Geertz doesn’t really address the issue of “first cause” in religious thought. As far as Geertz is concerned, religion comes from tradition. Just as the existence or non-existence of god is irrelevant in cultural anthropology, the origins of religious thought are largely irrelevant. What matters is how the symbols, beliefs, and customs help to shape a given culture. So Geertz’s non-theory theory of religion works tremendously well in analyzing the customs and behaviors of cultures around the world. He explains why religious beliefs and practices are important to a culture and he describes how rituals are performed. For Geertz, there is no need to look into the origins of religious thought because that is not critical to the understanding of culture, only to the understanding of religion.
Geertz’s “thick description” of religion is very beneficial in analyzing how a shared set of beliefs and practices shape and define a culture. While Freud dismisses religious practices as little more than neurotic aberrations with little meaning other than to give the practitioner a placebo for his neurosis, Geertz places a tremendous amount of importance on religious beliefs and practices and how these relate to a given population. Freud claims that religion is simply an awkward intermediate step along the road to something better and far more useful to humanity. This view has understandably angered those who are religious. Geertz’s approach is more sympathetic to the religiously-minded as it does its best not place any value judgements on the beliefs and practices of a culture. However one of the major drawbacks to Geertz’s approach to religion is his neglect in addressing the origins of religious thought. Though he defines religion very well, his claim that religion is a product of tradition leaves, to paraphrase his analogy, a tower of turtles with nothing to stand on. Geertz’s non-theory of religion is a tremendously useful tool for analyzing culture, but not so great when it comes to analyzing religion itself. While a substantive approach is useful in studying the myriad traditions, beliefs, and practices of religions around the world and the cultures that practice them, a functional theory is perhaps necessary when it comes to the question of what caused religious thought.
Bibliography
Freud, Sigmund. The Future of an Illusion. Tr. James Strachey. Standard Edition. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1961.
Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books Inc., 1973.
Pals, Daniel. Eight Theories of Religion. Second Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
07 May 2009
National Day of Prayer
What better day to reignite my atheism blog than on the National Day of Prayer. I originally started this blog a little over two years ago as a place to comment, critique, and/or rant about religious and political bullshit going on in the world today. As an amateur political cartoonist, I try to keep up with current events. As a religious scholar, I study the historical sources of religious extremism in its myriad forms. As an atheist and a participant in this modern experiment in secularism, I do what I can to call religious types on their bullshit through academic research, political commentary, and good old-fashioned ranting.
Given that it's the National Day of Prayer, let me just harp on that for a bit. The mission statement for the NDP is:
These people claim that Christian ideologies are necessary and essential for the proper functioning of the United States Government. Never mind the fact that the Constitution of the United States clearly states in Article VI, Section 3:
The U.S. Constitution is a tangible source of our modern experiment in secularism. While it has its follies (like the three-fifths clause for example), it clearly establishes a government that is not based on religious dominion. Priests do not appoint presidents as they once did for kings. Not only is there no religious test required under the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights makes it clear right from the start that:
But these dominionist asshats who insist that the United States is a Christian nation are using every underhanded trick in the book to undermine our experiment in secularism. These people want nothing short of a theocracy, and I've got a problem with that.
I genuinely have no problem with individuals who choose to have faith in some divine critter what done it all. As a religious scholar, I'm fascinated with the rich histories and mythologies presented in the numerous holy texts from around the world. Where I have a major problem is with those individuals and institutions which dogmatically insist that their world view is the only world view that exists and is permitted. Faith becomes dangerous when it ceases to be a tool for comfort in an uncertain world and instead becomes a tool for the oppression of others.
I'm not an angry atheist. I don't hate God™. That very idea is laughable given the fact that the idea of gods are completely irrelevant to my world view. I have no fear of uncertainties like "Where did the universe come from?" or "What happens to us when we die?" These are questions that can never be answered objectively. Consequently, any answers that are provided are purely speculative at best. I'm not big on speculation unless I'm reading an alternate history science-fiction book.
If people of faith choose to pray today because it brings them personally closer to their gods, then more power to them. On the other hand, if people are praying today because they believe it will bring them closer to an American theocracy then I say let their institutions crumble to dust and their dogma fade away in the dust of the rubble. It is not needed or wanted in 21st century secular America.
Carpe Diem,
ellejohara
Given that it's the National Day of Prayer, let me just harp on that for a bit. The mission statement for the NDP is:
The National Day of Prayer Task Force's mission is to communicate with every individual the need for personal repentance and prayer, mobilizing the Christian community to intercede for America and its leadership in the seven centers of power: Government, Military, Media, Business, Education, Church and Family.
These people claim that Christian ideologies are necessary and essential for the proper functioning of the United States Government. Never mind the fact that the Constitution of the United States clearly states in Article VI, Section 3:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
The U.S. Constitution is a tangible source of our modern experiment in secularism. While it has its follies (like the three-fifths clause for example), it clearly establishes a government that is not based on religious dominion. Priests do not appoint presidents as they once did for kings. Not only is there no religious test required under the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights makes it clear right from the start that:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
But these dominionist asshats who insist that the United States is a Christian nation are using every underhanded trick in the book to undermine our experiment in secularism. These people want nothing short of a theocracy, and I've got a problem with that.
I genuinely have no problem with individuals who choose to have faith in some divine critter what done it all. As a religious scholar, I'm fascinated with the rich histories and mythologies presented in the numerous holy texts from around the world. Where I have a major problem is with those individuals and institutions which dogmatically insist that their world view is the only world view that exists and is permitted. Faith becomes dangerous when it ceases to be a tool for comfort in an uncertain world and instead becomes a tool for the oppression of others.
I'm not an angry atheist. I don't hate God™. That very idea is laughable given the fact that the idea of gods are completely irrelevant to my world view. I have no fear of uncertainties like "Where did the universe come from?" or "What happens to us when we die?" These are questions that can never be answered objectively. Consequently, any answers that are provided are purely speculative at best. I'm not big on speculation unless I'm reading an alternate history science-fiction book.
If people of faith choose to pray today because it brings them personally closer to their gods, then more power to them. On the other hand, if people are praying today because they believe it will bring them closer to an American theocracy then I say let their institutions crumble to dust and their dogma fade away in the dust of the rubble. It is not needed or wanted in 21st century secular America.
Carpe Diem,
ellejohara
16 April 2009
The evolution of religious thought. Part 2
It's only after recent discussion of Max Weber's theory of religion that I realized it was probably a mistake to title this series "The evolution of religious thought." As I have quickly discovered, the very concept of religion, let alone religious thought, is incredibly challenging to pin down. Beliefs and practices may adapt and change over time, but religious thought itself is a nebulous conundrum, wrapped inside an enigma, wrapped inside a delicious chocolate coating.
I discussed earlier that there are several different ways of approaching a theory of religion. Two methods that I am studying in my class are substantive and functional theories. So far, up until Max Weber's work, the theories that we've read are all functional theories with a penchant for extreme reductionism. Among the works I've read about, the granddaddy of reductionist theory goes to Karl Marx, followed closely by Émile Durkheim.
Marx's theory of religion can be summed up in one famous quotation: "Religion is the opiate of the masses." For Marx, religion was a powerful tool the Bourgeoisie could use to control the masses of the Proletariat. Beliefs and practices of differing religious traditions are irrelevant because for Marx, the sole purpose of religion is to distract the masses from the gross imbalance of power that exists in the capitalist model of society. Religion is essentially a pathology that ultimately hinders the workers' ability to unite and overthrow those in power.
This gross reduction of the purpose of religion serves only to promote Marx's central philosophy of the workers' control of the means of production. Everything that people do in society, religion included, is for the sole purpose of reinforcing the class divisions of the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat. Ironically this reductionist approach is just as dogmatic as many religious orthodoxies. Except instead of reducing everything to God™, Marx reduces it to the flow of the almighty Dollar™. There is little room to interpret religion in Marx's philosophy.
Durkheim's approach isn't as rigid as Marx, although there is still a strong reductionist tendency. For Durkheim, religion serves a purely sociological purpose. Based on an intense light reading of one tribal culture, the Aborigines of Australia, Durkheim concludes that the whole of religious experience can be reduced to totemism: that all religious acts merely serve to reinforce the social identity of the tribe. There is no "I" in Durkheim's theory of religion. He believes it just isn't possible for an individual to shape the course of the group.
Like Marx, Durkheim avoids discussing differing religious beliefs and practices among different cultures. It doesn't matter how a society engages in its relationship with the sacred. Unique beliefs and practices are irrelevant because ultimately they can all be reduced to rituals designed to reinforce the identity of the tribe. In my opinion, it is a very narrow perspective on the complexities of religion.
Neither Marx nor Durkheim address the nuances of beliefs or practices, and they both reduce religious thought to a single, narrowly-defined purpose. I'm not impressed by either of their theories of religion. However, there are bits and pieces of each that raise interesting questions for me. Marx sees religion as a tool of oppression. Durkheim sees religion as a tool of social unity. I can see how both of these points of view can be useful in looking at how religion in human history has served as a device for both unification and division. If both Marx and Durkheim provide at least one reasonable point of view on religion, then clearly religion cannot be reduced to a single purpose. There must be more to it.
While I'd like to believe that there is a single, easy to state, theory of religion which defines the purpose of religion in a neat and tidy little thesis, I just don't think that is possible. Religion is far too complex a beast to tame in a single sentence. Enter Max Weber (pronounced Mocks Vayber), a German sociologist who takes a decidedly different approach to a theory of religion. The scope of Weber's work is so ridiculously vast that it is really difficult to summarize. Indeed, when I was reading the arguments of his theory in the Daniel Pals book, I was completely overwhelmed by the broad scope of Weber's work. weber addresses so many different aspects of religion, culture, and society that it's incredibly difficult to really glean anything useful out of it.
I'm not going to address Max Weber's work in this post, but I do want to say that the opposite of a reductionist approach isn't necessarily a better way to contemplate a theory of religion. While it is a good thing to have a broad general view of things, a little focus goes a long way. More on Weber later.
ellejohara
I discussed earlier that there are several different ways of approaching a theory of religion. Two methods that I am studying in my class are substantive and functional theories. So far, up until Max Weber's work, the theories that we've read are all functional theories with a penchant for extreme reductionism. Among the works I've read about, the granddaddy of reductionist theory goes to Karl Marx, followed closely by Émile Durkheim.
Marx's theory of religion can be summed up in one famous quotation: "Religion is the opiate of the masses." For Marx, religion was a powerful tool the Bourgeoisie could use to control the masses of the Proletariat. Beliefs and practices of differing religious traditions are irrelevant because for Marx, the sole purpose of religion is to distract the masses from the gross imbalance of power that exists in the capitalist model of society. Religion is essentially a pathology that ultimately hinders the workers' ability to unite and overthrow those in power.
This gross reduction of the purpose of religion serves only to promote Marx's central philosophy of the workers' control of the means of production. Everything that people do in society, religion included, is for the sole purpose of reinforcing the class divisions of the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat. Ironically this reductionist approach is just as dogmatic as many religious orthodoxies. Except instead of reducing everything to God™, Marx reduces it to the flow of the almighty Dollar™. There is little room to interpret religion in Marx's philosophy.
Durkheim's approach isn't as rigid as Marx, although there is still a strong reductionist tendency. For Durkheim, religion serves a purely sociological purpose. Based on an intense light reading of one tribal culture, the Aborigines of Australia, Durkheim concludes that the whole of religious experience can be reduced to totemism: that all religious acts merely serve to reinforce the social identity of the tribe. There is no "I" in Durkheim's theory of religion. He believes it just isn't possible for an individual to shape the course of the group.
Like Marx, Durkheim avoids discussing differing religious beliefs and practices among different cultures. It doesn't matter how a society engages in its relationship with the sacred. Unique beliefs and practices are irrelevant because ultimately they can all be reduced to rituals designed to reinforce the identity of the tribe. In my opinion, it is a very narrow perspective on the complexities of religion.
Neither Marx nor Durkheim address the nuances of beliefs or practices, and they both reduce religious thought to a single, narrowly-defined purpose. I'm not impressed by either of their theories of religion. However, there are bits and pieces of each that raise interesting questions for me. Marx sees religion as a tool of oppression. Durkheim sees religion as a tool of social unity. I can see how both of these points of view can be useful in looking at how religion in human history has served as a device for both unification and division. If both Marx and Durkheim provide at least one reasonable point of view on religion, then clearly religion cannot be reduced to a single purpose. There must be more to it.
While I'd like to believe that there is a single, easy to state, theory of religion which defines the purpose of religion in a neat and tidy little thesis, I just don't think that is possible. Religion is far too complex a beast to tame in a single sentence. Enter Max Weber (pronounced Mocks Vayber), a German sociologist who takes a decidedly different approach to a theory of religion. The scope of Weber's work is so ridiculously vast that it is really difficult to summarize. Indeed, when I was reading the arguments of his theory in the Daniel Pals book, I was completely overwhelmed by the broad scope of Weber's work. weber addresses so many different aspects of religion, culture, and society that it's incredibly difficult to really glean anything useful out of it.
I'm not going to address Max Weber's work in this post, but I do want to say that the opposite of a reductionist approach isn't necessarily a better way to contemplate a theory of religion. While it is a good thing to have a broad general view of things, a little focus goes a long way. More on Weber later.
ellejohara
11 April 2009
Blog Against Theocracy
When I was about eight or nine years old, I knew there was no God™. Or if there was some sort of higher power, it certainly didn't give a damn about us here on Earth. Ever since then, my quest for answers to life's big questions has been led by rational thought and scientific inquiry. That quest, ironically enough, led me to become a religious studies scholar. Even if it doesn't work for me, I still want to understand why religion works for so many millions of people.
Currently I'm a religious studies major at the University of Oregon. I've studied just about every religion that is currently practiced by human beings on this planet. I've researched customs and rituals. I've read about various gods, goddesses, and assorted religious figures. I've even been to a few religious services for the purpose of field research. Yet even with all this academic knowledge of religion, I still can't figure out what it is that draws people to it.
Every day I see violence, fear, and hate committed all in the name of God™. From the tiny bit of anthropology I've studied, I know that humans haven't changed much in the last 150 thousand years or so. We are still the same aggressive, violent critters we were back then. The only thing that has changed is that now we have philosophical justifications for our aggression and violence.
Now here we are in our modern world still killing each other. Sometimes over food, sometimes over land, and sometimes because one group's imaginary BFF is different from another group's. Where it gets really dangerous is when the religious types begin codifying their hate and fear into political and/or religious institutions. It's one thing to question a yahoo who thinks he's God™. It's another thing entirely to question an established institution.
I am a queer atheist. There are those among us in our own culture alone, to say nothing of other cultures worldwide, who want to commit acts of hate and violence against me simply because it has been codified in the documents of their various institutions. These acts can range anywhere from restricting my rights to murdering me in cold blood. Is this the behavior of an enlightened culture? I think not. We're still just a bunch of monkeys throwing shit at each other.
We have the capacity for rational, scientific inquiry. Why don't we use it? This is my quest. This is the question that prompted me to study religion. As of this writing I still don't have an answer. But I continue to search. In the meantime, I do what I can to call people on their religious bullshit using the only weapon I have at my disposal: my brain.
Carpe Diem,
ellejohara
[Check out other blog posts at http://blogagainsttheocracy.blogspot.com/]
Currently I'm a religious studies major at the University of Oregon. I've studied just about every religion that is currently practiced by human beings on this planet. I've researched customs and rituals. I've read about various gods, goddesses, and assorted religious figures. I've even been to a few religious services for the purpose of field research. Yet even with all this academic knowledge of religion, I still can't figure out what it is that draws people to it.
Every day I see violence, fear, and hate committed all in the name of God™. From the tiny bit of anthropology I've studied, I know that humans haven't changed much in the last 150 thousand years or so. We are still the same aggressive, violent critters we were back then. The only thing that has changed is that now we have philosophical justifications for our aggression and violence.
Now here we are in our modern world still killing each other. Sometimes over food, sometimes over land, and sometimes because one group's imaginary BFF is different from another group's. Where it gets really dangerous is when the religious types begin codifying their hate and fear into political and/or religious institutions. It's one thing to question a yahoo who thinks he's God™. It's another thing entirely to question an established institution.
I am a queer atheist. There are those among us in our own culture alone, to say nothing of other cultures worldwide, who want to commit acts of hate and violence against me simply because it has been codified in the documents of their various institutions. These acts can range anywhere from restricting my rights to murdering me in cold blood. Is this the behavior of an enlightened culture? I think not. We're still just a bunch of monkeys throwing shit at each other.
We have the capacity for rational, scientific inquiry. Why don't we use it? This is my quest. This is the question that prompted me to study religion. As of this writing I still don't have an answer. But I continue to search. In the meantime, I do what I can to call people on their religious bullshit using the only weapon I have at my disposal: my brain.
Carpe Diem,
ellejohara
[Check out other blog posts at http://blogagainsttheocracy.blogspot.com/]
30 March 2009
Theories of Religion - An Introduction
Spring term classes started up today at the University of Oregon and I discovered that my one and only class this term, Theory of Religion, is going to completely rock my world. I only recently picked up the texts for the course and I haven't started reading them yet. However in the class today, the professor discussed some different categories of theories for the academic pursuit of religion.
In one text that we're going to read, Eight Theories of Religion by Daniel Pals, the author proposes two categories of theory: substantive versus functional. The Substantive category of theories of religion addresses the content of religion: that is beliefs and values, practices and traditions. Substantive theories try to offer an explanation of religion from a sort of scientific standpoint. That may be cognitive, sociological, or some other scientific analysis. Functional theories look at the beliefs and values, practices and traditions of religions and how these things function in other aspects of the human condition such as economics, politics, or psychology. Functional theories often tend toward reductionism: that religion is only a means to an end. Religion serves a socio-economic purpose by delineating a clear division between those with power and those without power. Those who consider themselves religious tend to frown upon functional theories because they seem to take away from the mystique of a spiritual practice.
The other two categories we're going to consider is Realist versus Anti-realist. That is, theories that assume from the outset that god exists versus theories that assume god does not exist. Thinkers like Soren Kierkegaard and John Hick fall into the first category while authors like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens fall into the second. The problem with Realist versus Anti-realist is that it begs the question: "Does God exist?" Based on an author's personal perspective (Kierkegaard versus Dawkins for example), their theory of religion is going to reflect their already assumed conclusion.
So is it possible to have a purely objective perspective on religion? I'm inclined to believe that an objective opinion of religion is not possible. There's always going to be the insider/outsider dilemma. I'm a religious studies scholar, and yet I'm also an avowed atheist. That fact alone is going to influence my opinions and interpretations of religious study.
I'm looking forward to seeing what this course has to offer and I'm going to continue blogging about it throughout the term. I welcome discussion on the subject from believers and non-believers alike.
Carpe Diem,
ellejohara
In one text that we're going to read, Eight Theories of Religion by Daniel Pals, the author proposes two categories of theory: substantive versus functional. The Substantive category of theories of religion addresses the content of religion: that is beliefs and values, practices and traditions. Substantive theories try to offer an explanation of religion from a sort of scientific standpoint. That may be cognitive, sociological, or some other scientific analysis. Functional theories look at the beliefs and values, practices and traditions of religions and how these things function in other aspects of the human condition such as economics, politics, or psychology. Functional theories often tend toward reductionism: that religion is only a means to an end. Religion serves a socio-economic purpose by delineating a clear division between those with power and those without power. Those who consider themselves religious tend to frown upon functional theories because they seem to take away from the mystique of a spiritual practice.
The other two categories we're going to consider is Realist versus Anti-realist. That is, theories that assume from the outset that god exists versus theories that assume god does not exist. Thinkers like Soren Kierkegaard and John Hick fall into the first category while authors like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens fall into the second. The problem with Realist versus Anti-realist is that it begs the question: "Does God exist?" Based on an author's personal perspective (Kierkegaard versus Dawkins for example), their theory of religion is going to reflect their already assumed conclusion.
So is it possible to have a purely objective perspective on religion? I'm inclined to believe that an objective opinion of religion is not possible. There's always going to be the insider/outsider dilemma. I'm a religious studies scholar, and yet I'm also an avowed atheist. That fact alone is going to influence my opinions and interpretations of religious study.
I'm looking forward to seeing what this course has to offer and I'm going to continue blogging about it throughout the term. I welcome discussion on the subject from believers and non-believers alike.
Carpe Diem,
ellejohara
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