I appreciate your writing a lot, but I in fact am religious (Quaker), and it's pretty important to my internal moral compass, and the extent to which I am held to it in my actions, and what efficacy I have in community solidarity and mutual aid. Like unions, religious groups are, among other things, some (sure, even many) of which are bad, also a way that people self-organize to care for each other and effect political action.
Yeah, of course-- there's tons of other ways in my life that I engage with both care and with political action. But why would I want to disengage from one of the most enjoyable and effective ways I've found of being in community?
It is easy for me to understand why people enjoy the community aspect of religion, which I refer to as the "cultural" aspects in the piece above. Much of that is obviously very worthwhile. But it doesn't follow to me that you need to believe that the religion itself is true.
You might want to do a bit more research on religions other than popular expressions of American Christianity before pontificating on religion as a whole; "religious" is in fact a word that means something different and more specific than "someone who literally believes in all of a specific list of unverifiable claims", and it makes you look kind of silly to pretend it means only what you're saying it does, while also saying that therefore it's a silly concept that no one should adhere to.
Agreed--it's very evangelical-Christian centric to say religion = belief. Religion is culture and rituals and things people can find very sustaining without any kind of literal belief. In Judaism religion is about culture, actions and rituals and belief doesn't have to come into it at all.
There's an excellent book called Tech Agnostic about tech becoming a religion as we make obeisance to the rectangles of light in our pockets. The more dogmatic believe an AI got is coming to save us, but all of us who carry out the rituals of tech are participating in it.
To say taking the "religious" aspect out of Quakerism, or Judaism doesn't mean take out belief, it means take out everything.
Yeah in my community of seeking Jews the idea you have to belief in a whole set of whatever to be religious or pray is just laughable. It's just not the case!
I am in fact not the one here who wrote an essay claiming to state definitively what religion is and why it sucks! And in fact, I recommend folks who assume the matter is easy and obvious don’t try to do that, either.
Here’s Merriam Webster though; “a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices”.
The thing that's confusing me about this take from you is that many religions serve a very similar social and cultural function to the idea of a union! Ideally, religious communities (and I'm speaking specifically about Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish religious communities, which are the religions I'm most familiar with) build solidarity between people from different backgrounds and different beliefs because members have a strong sense of responsibility to one another and the group and a shared set of values, even if they may argue about what those values mean or how they are best put in practice. They have regular meetings that place people in physical proximity for rituals that give them a sense of purpose, belonging, and transcendence. Neoliberal expressions of "spirituality" (and as a subscriber to multiple astrology apps, I absolutely implicate myself here) are in no sense effective substitutes.
Yes, hence the forever recurring thing of non-religious people saying "I wish we had something like church on Sundays." I buy the social/ solidarity value of (some) religions, but I don't think that should have to be accompanied by a set of mythologies you're supposed to buy into as well.
Yeah, and I think there are useful conversations about why efforts to make secular church haven't really taken--is faith or something like it a necessary component of that kind of community (and does "another world is possible" qualify?) Or are there other barriers (lack of physical infrastructure, history, shared references/songs/cultural elements, etc.) that have nothing to do with faith?
My basic problem with Christianity, as someone who would under some circumstances identify as a Christian atheist, is that faith is so baked into the idea of what it means to be a good Christian (or at least a good Protestant) that doing the religious stuff without believing it feels fake and wrong. I do think Christianity is unique(ly bad) in this way, though! Most of my observant Jewish friends also identify as atheist without any real angst.
I know nice Christians, Jews, Muslims and Atheists.
There are many bad as well.
Their beliefs arent what makes them nice people.
Some are told that. So they pretend a false belief makes them moral. It is actually one reason religions are very harmful.
Jewish is also cultural btw.
I have a Xmas tree. It has pagan origins. I am not pagan nor Christian. Raised Catholic. I don't Santa is real.
It is cultural. Not about Christianity.
Won't find anything Christian about my decorations.
Snowmen, Santa, etc.
All just for fun.
Even most so called believing Christians spend more time, effort, and money on the Pagan aspects. One hour in church then the rest of the day watching sports, opening presents and other non religious activities.
This was as satisfying to read as eating the whole bowl of whipped cream.
Yet, ignoring the validity of needing a frame for the essential human experience of wonder - of awe or the evanescent sensation of glory - is an incomplete description of my experience of consciousness.
These moments - like our most miserable moments of despair - are writ so large in our emotional lives our desire for a mythology or schema to help us digest them is an insoluble opportunity and vulnerability.
Empathy is very much learned and unlearned. I think even the most well-meaning people tend to think women are more empathetic than men, when it’s society that drives that divide.
I think empathy is a human trait that we are born with, that can be lost when we are hurt early on- and bullied out so you can learn to be part of the oppressor class
For me, faith has to do with the fundamentally unknowable. So I’d accept arguendo this definition of “agnostic” in the sense that I don’t “know” there is a Holy Spirit in the same way I know, say, the boiling point of water is 100° C at sea level.
But I use “gnosis” differently, myself. It’s relevant to me to understand the Divine, and it’s based on personal, inward experience that simply can’t be measured scientifically. And I have no interest in trying to define or characterize other people’s inward experiences of the existence or non-existence of a Godhead.
I understand that this is a hugely important argument to some, around which there has been endless philosophical debate and no small amount of violence. But I can’t imagine why I’d want to try and convince anyone else they are wrong about their view.
I observe most of the core principles of almost all religions. none of them being fully credible completely to me. I'm not religious in any sense though. I see organized religion as a tool of the state to maintain order, as well as being the fossilized remnants of cave-man fears. It works in essence as a means of assuring that most of us don't kill as many of the rest of us as we are capable of killing without a response from the survivors. Otherwise, it would be about as pertinent as the wind.
Knowledge is not wisdom, ignorance is not wisdom but knowing that you don't know as you seek to question more to know greater truths even different ways of knowing is wisdom. “Ignorance is an ocean what we know is just a drop.' William James
I say this as an atheist — I don’t think this is the right way to talk about religion. It’s not a matter of people “blinding” themselves to absolute truth, not a logical fallacy you can argue people out of. Behind the differing mythologies and definitions, religion is a metaphor, a model for the world and its mechanisms. When you consider that humans are *only* able to interact with reality through models, due to the limits of our senses and comprehension, it makes more sense why you can litigate the small details of individual religions with facts/science/etc, but the overarching principle of divinity remains true for so many.
And I do know many intelligent, genuinely religious people. Being intelligent, they question and interrogate their religious philosophies— but this is not the same as ingenuine faith. I recommend seeking out people like this, especially as an atheist or agnostic, and learning openmindedly about cultural and philosophical religious traditions. It has enriched my own philosophy in more ways than I can name.
I find the author's insistent demand that even the idea of religion be abandoned, presumably because science and religion cannot coexist, more than jarring.
I have no desire to deprive people of the comfort or community they derive from religious beliefs.
I vehemently disagree with weaponized religion, or the efforts to impose religious/cultural beliefs on entire countries, but just as I refuse any authority to impose religious beliefs on me, I don't presume to impose my agnostic/atheist views on others.
History provides no evidence that humanity will "evolve" past a need for an attachment to religion/spirituality.
“You must commit to reject the facts in order to embrace the faith. You must be willing to disbelieve your lying eyes. It’s a test of loyalty, like asking a kid to shoot someone to get into a gang.” This statement is *factually* incorrect. It is in fact
a gross distortion of the motley, polychromatic nature of religion to claim that to be religious in any way *necessarily* requires denial of the facts.
This is honestly the first piece of yours that I read that I cannot agree with.
It's not that I don't agree with the gist of it, nor is it that I ultimately don't agree with the "correct stance" that you propose should be taken, it's really that I think you have a somewhat simplifying view of what it means to be religious.
You sort of ask for a purity test for true religious belief that most believers wouldn't even try to pass. Well, frankly, I guess, it might be a little different in the US these days, because what you are actually sort of describing are all sorts of "Fundamentalists" in the sense in which Zizek uses the term. What these people are kind of doing is taking the scientific paradigm and acting as if religion was in the same category, which is of course patently absurd, and if that's the issue then surely all the things that you are saying are true. However, there's an entire spectrum of religious belief in between that is sort of harder to tackle and which is constantly reconciling itself with the scientific paradigm or at least living alongside it. Take for example the entirety of "Credo quia absurdum" stances that maintain that "Yes, I have faith, but it is precisely and only faith and I acknowledge that everything that is part of the category of knowledge is part of another epistemic order altogether". (Kierkegaard being a somewhat prominent proponent of the view). Take for example the Spinozist notion - which is of course at odds with organized religion - that basically just creates a framework for a monist view of the cosmos, stuff like that.
Now, a good objection here is of course that most people don't believe like THAT. Which is absolutely true in the same sense in which most people don't think about politics in the way the readers of this substack most likely do. But also most religions also don't hold their believers metaphorical feet to the fire in swallowing their doxa wholesale all the time, even though there are dispute mechanisms of course in place, like the entire issue with the infallibility of the Pope - but that has ALWAYS been contested to some extent, yet, those people still remained clearly religious nonetheless.
I'm saying that not to be a smartass, but because there is a political stake in this issue and one that socialists and communists have been wrestling with for a long time. How to deal with people that maintain a sort of "can't touch this" resort in their brains - and I don't exactly believe that just denying that it is there or that they aren't serious about it is the best way to go about it. Instead, I think it makes more sense to zero in on what you make out as an issue of the people calling themselves "Spiritual" - which is to say that there's a yearning. This insecurity, this vague notion that there "has to be something more" might not be in itself entirely rational, BUT it is more rational than its absence. For example, there are "Atheists" that proclaim that the cosmos is vast and nothing has meaning, on a cosmic scale - which is of course misunderstanding what "meaning" actually is, insofar it is a concept BY US AND FOR US.
But I don't want to rant too long here - Marx has actually already put it best in his wonderful flowers quote, concerning the Criticism of religion. Many will know it already, but it's always worth repeating:
“Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower.”
What I am basically saying in regard to this piece, picking up the metaphor is:
it's not really the best angle of attack to point out that the chain is not worth wearing and that one has stopped wearing it altogether anyway - it seems more prudent to point out that the living flower is still waiting to be plucked.
I'm glad I'm not the only one ranting here. I love this: "this vague notion that there 'has to be something more' might not be in itself entirely rational, BUT it is more rational than its absence."
Religious comes from the Latin religio meaning rule, and means subscribing to a certain set of practices - practices which shape us towards a more loving orientation towards the world and others, and thus become our rule for life. So I am religious, inasmuch as I take the Eucharist every week, and follow a set of Christian practices. It doesn't really have much to do with what sort of propositions I myself have about the world. I don't see what you think it achieves pretending you know better to say otherwise? St Paul's development of Christianity is explicitly communist.
I am not an agnostic. I am an atheist. But I am not haughty about. Let people believe what they want to believe. I just don’t think about it very much. I am often in awe of the universe, but I am not “spiritual” about it, whatever that means. Perhaps it means they would like a god, but can’t bring themselves to actually believe the nonsense that goes with it. If that is comforting, fine.
I actually do use the word "spritual" when I feel enraptured by the wonder of life - but ymmv
I liked Thomas Paine's take, that religion is deeply personal - and in that sense I could give a crap about what the actual beliefs are. The idea of asking someone to behave differently based on your personal religious beliefs is completely inappropriate, and should be treated as such.
Respectfully: when you say "religion" here, you mean Christianity, and you mean it in a rather hegemonic way that I'm not wild about.
The "chief demand" of being Jewish is not, in fact, faith. (This is why, as far as it goes, Jewish people refer to themselves as "observant," not "religious.")
This is what I mean by the "cultural" aspects of religion. I understand the appeal of those things I just don't think they necessarily need to ask people to buy into a particular mythology to participate in them.
Yeah--my point is that not every religious tradition *does* ask you to "buy into a particular mythology." The rituals, in which I think there's a lot of value to be found, do require you to tell and retell the stories, in which I think there's a lot of value to be found, but they don't require you to take the stories literally. Indeed, I don't think the stories themselves really allow for literal interpretation most of the time.
I think there's a strong argument to be made against (and for) the kind of nationalism and sectarianism that comes from religious identities, but again, the kind of faith you're talking about seems specific to Christianity. That's OK, I guess—this is America—but it's worth naming.
One of the basic principles is that you wrestle with and interrogate the idea of God—not that you have the kind of uncritical/unwavering acceptance that you seem to mean by "faith."
Unitarian Universalism is also very much a religion (and one in the US context that I'm most familiar with), which some people embrace as a faith tradition as well as observing as a religion, that is very specifically non-dogmatic. There's no list of supernatural beliefs you must adhere to, or even probably that most or all UUs believe in or would agree on, and yet: a religion!
To each his own. I prefer Christopher Hitchens' assertions that atheism is the refusal to believe in a supernatural dimension, and that belief in organized religion has manifestly harmed the human race: "Violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children: organized religion ought to have a great deal on it's conscience." If that's rude, so be it. But you are absolutely right: I don't believe all the made-up stuff.
All human organizations have "manifestly harmed the human race": are there even any that haven't? Government, philosophy, scholarship, business, marriage, war, trade, money, whatever. Why does religion always get singled out?
The new atheists may be haughty, but the religious pretend to know the mind of God (or that there is one). How's that for arrogance? The religious mind has been, for millenia, the far more problematic mental disposition. The atheists may be snotty, but they didn't start the Crusades or make Jihad or level the Palestinians in Gaza (to take but a couple easy to reach examples).
I like your comment except the part that denigrates atheists. Just because we don't believe in a god doesn't make us either haughty or snotty. We just don't believe, period.
Well, there are usually nations and kingdoms involved in those things as well. Atheistic nations can be just as bad. When it comes to blame, I'd put tribalism and the inevitable human desire for wealth, land and security way ahead of religion.
Not sure if you are being deliberately obtuse, but I did not claim that religion was the sole or primary source of world strife -- I was comparing levels of arrogance and resulting calamity as between the religious and the irreligious. So I picked examples where religion and its arrogance led directly to attacks on variously defined infidels and was/is clearly the primary source of the strife. Are there any similar crusades fueled primarily by raging bands of atheists against the religious? Any hardcore atheists enacting violence on their apostates as has happened to Salman Rushdie and Rabin (and countless others)? Even if I grant you that Stalin was a hater of religion (easy) and that his atheism was his primary motivation for the purges and famines (a bit harder, but I will stipulate for these purposes) and that he started wars because of it (very hard, but we'll count the internal casualties), religious wars are still orders of magnitude ahead in the body count. Richard Dawkins' mockery is simply less painful and deadly than Torquemada's devices. Oddly the religious founders often have a great deal more humility than their follows (Jesus is the first draft pick here). Inevitably then it seems, some portion of faithful followers arrogate life and death decisions to themselves, arm themselves to the teeth and wander off in search of nonbelievers to punish. My contention, put simply, is that suffering caused by the insufferable is the pretty much province of the arrogant believers, not the arrogant non-believers.
Not deliberately obtuse, just responding to the common, tiresome argument against religion in general, of which this is apparently a modification.
I don't think there's enough historical evidence for the "religious arrogance" theory. We have no idea whether the rulers who instigated these crusades were actually religious or not - they were products of their cultures, and if they were influenced by religion, then it was a handy tool for justifying what they wanted to do anyway. Arrogance, thirst for power, the urge to conquer: these things are so innate in human nature that we'd have them with or without religion.
"...the haughtiness of atheism, which combines the dissatisfaction of agnosticism with a determination to be rude about it.."
This is snide and unfair. I do not suffer dissatisfaction as an atheist. I do not consider myself an atheist because I have somehow divined the indisputable and everlasting truth about the cosmos. I am simply inclined to weigh the evidence available and adopt a belief that has the overwhelming weight of evidence behind it. This is, of course, one of the major foundations of the scientific method, which helps explain why so many scientists are atheists. That does not mean that I would not change my mind if convincing evidence of, say, a religious miracle appeared (consult David Hume for the criterion to be applied). Nor am I "rude" about my belief that a personal god does not exist. I'm not one of the "atheist bros" who push their disbelief in strangers' faces and try to convert the religious. I'm simply being honest about who I am.
If I had wanted to offer a shorter and snider comment, I could have simply written something about "the cowardice of agnosticism, which combines the intellectual dishonesty of Pascal's Wager with a hidden fear of offending the faithful." But I didn't. I met your refusal to commit with a sincere response. I wish you had done the same for those of us who consider ourselves atheists.
Thank you for your reply, but I beg to disagree. Hume's essay on miracles establishes a procedure for accepting any evidence of a personal God that basically rules out anything short of a direct message from above. All Hume's close friends and many of his enemies considered him an atheist. His deathbed statements don't reveal any agnostic doubt about an afterlife. (See E. C. Mossner, THE LIFE OF DAVID HUME.) All indications are that Hume refused to label himself publicly because it would hurt the sales of his essays and his history of England.
I believe that "what I call atheism" is very close to the belief that most atheists would describe if asked. If that is so close to what you call agnosticism, why not label yourself an atheist and end what is basically a fruitless argument? Why go out of your way to show your contempt for a group that holds beliefs so similar to yours?
The "haughtiness" of atheism? Mate, you may want to stick to writing about unions.
Where are all these annoying, haughty atheists? Is it an American thing, a reaction to the exhausting Christian majority? That would make sense, but I've lived here 10 years and never met anyone like that. In other countries, atheism is just a personal choice, separate from the culture war.
The great part is, all this religious/philosophical hand-wringing in your post is totally optional. You can just live your life with the certainty that all human religions are made-up stories, and all we have is the real world. It's great. In fact, it's kind of freeing. Give it a shot.
Color me agnostic. This is so simply and articulately laid out by you, Hamilton. I've called myself "spiritual" for decades, and felt disappointed and frustrated with myself for not being "better" at it. No communing with the prophets or the spirits of the dead. Always on the search for "the truth." Joseph Campbell did a wonderful job describing the all too human desire to understand - to know - and weaving together the underpinnings of religious beliefs. I don't recall if subscribed to any particular religion. Lastly, the scientists, and philosophers, exploring quantum physics are bringing new concepts of consciousness intertwined with quantum science. Fascinating stuff. (See the series, "Infinite Potential" and Bohm & Krishnamurti.) I'll always be a seeker, more than a believer. Long-winded way of saying: well done!
I've read practically all of Joseph Campbell's writings and have heard many of his lectures in person. Though he never stated this explicitly, his words show he was most aligned with the Advaita Vedanta philosophy of India interpreted through a Jungian lens.
On what is I know an extremely limited experiential level, the people I know who loudly identify themselves as religious and regularly attend services are, every single one of them, all about a rigid social hierarchy in which they imagine themselves being at or near the top. And money. I'm sure there are religious people out there who actually wrestle with faith and want answers, but I've never met them. Or I've met them but not known this because they don't talk about it. So when someone tells me their religious my presumption is that they're filled with hate and rage and have joined with others to cause harm--but it's okay because they have a story about a god that lets them define their violence as justice. My point being that I think you're overlooking that for many people "religion" is and always has no different than being part of any other club or gang. No faith or belief required.
A moral compass is essential in life. Religion is not the only method for acquiring morality. Clearly we see this in politics and fake religiosos. Religions also have gaps in morality. Anti-gay, racism, pro-wealth. Religions are fools trickery. Pomp and awe for the masses.
I would posit the religion is not any way to acquire morality. People drop the parts of religion they don't like, adhere to the parts they do, and pretend that they do it because god told them to...
Religion, believing in a god, believing in something outside of yourself can be comforting. The world can be a scary place, it only makes sense that human beings would create a "shelter" to protect themselves from an indifferent universe. Not everyone needs a religion or faith in something "spiritual". But many people do. I'm fine with it, just don't dictate to me what I should believe in and what I shouldn't.
So what do atheists do when they need comforting? We all build up our self-esteem and faith in the future on some kind of belief system, which is primarily provided by our culture so it may be invisible. ("At least I'm not like those silly people who believe in stuff" (therefore I can respect myself ...)
I appreciate your writing a lot, but I in fact am religious (Quaker), and it's pretty important to my internal moral compass, and the extent to which I am held to it in my actions, and what efficacy I have in community solidarity and mutual aid. Like unions, religious groups are, among other things, some (sure, even many) of which are bad, also a way that people self-organize to care for each other and effect political action.
Do you think that you could or would still embrace caring for others absent the religious aspect?
Yeah, of course-- there's tons of other ways in my life that I engage with both care and with political action. But why would I want to disengage from one of the most enjoyable and effective ways I've found of being in community?
It is easy for me to understand why people enjoy the community aspect of religion, which I refer to as the "cultural" aspects in the piece above. Much of that is obviously very worthwhile. But it doesn't follow to me that you need to believe that the religion itself is true.
You might want to do a bit more research on religions other than popular expressions of American Christianity before pontificating on religion as a whole; "religious" is in fact a word that means something different and more specific than "someone who literally believes in all of a specific list of unverifiable claims", and it makes you look kind of silly to pretend it means only what you're saying it does, while also saying that therefore it's a silly concept that no one should adhere to.
Agreed--it's very evangelical-Christian centric to say religion = belief. Religion is culture and rituals and things people can find very sustaining without any kind of literal belief. In Judaism religion is about culture, actions and rituals and belief doesn't have to come into it at all.
There's an excellent book called Tech Agnostic about tech becoming a religion as we make obeisance to the rectangles of light in our pockets. The more dogmatic believe an AI got is coming to save us, but all of us who carry out the rituals of tech are participating in it.
To say taking the "religious" aspect out of Quakerism, or Judaism doesn't mean take out belief, it means take out everything.
Yeah in my community of seeking Jews the idea you have to belief in a whole set of whatever to be religious or pray is just laughable. It's just not the case!
Your response feels very Clintonian is is.
It ‘means something different and more specific’.
Name it; and be specific.
I am in fact not the one here who wrote an essay claiming to state definitively what religion is and why it sucks! And in fact, I recommend folks who assume the matter is easy and obvious don’t try to do that, either.
Here’s Merriam Webster though; “a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices”.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/religion
The thing that's confusing me about this take from you is that many religions serve a very similar social and cultural function to the idea of a union! Ideally, religious communities (and I'm speaking specifically about Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish religious communities, which are the religions I'm most familiar with) build solidarity between people from different backgrounds and different beliefs because members have a strong sense of responsibility to one another and the group and a shared set of values, even if they may argue about what those values mean or how they are best put in practice. They have regular meetings that place people in physical proximity for rituals that give them a sense of purpose, belonging, and transcendence. Neoliberal expressions of "spirituality" (and as a subscriber to multiple astrology apps, I absolutely implicate myself here) are in no sense effective substitutes.
Yes, hence the forever recurring thing of non-religious people saying "I wish we had something like church on Sundays." I buy the social/ solidarity value of (some) religions, but I don't think that should have to be accompanied by a set of mythologies you're supposed to buy into as well.
Sport is similar. A possible effective replacement.
Social.
Has team or club based loyalties.
A church near me doesn't meet on Sunday.
Kids are out playing soccer or other sports.
It is hard for non theists because non theists do not have a reason to meet up.
I suspect a significant percentage at churches are only there to fit in socially. Peer pressure certainly. Many for economic networking reasons.
Yeah, and I think there are useful conversations about why efforts to make secular church haven't really taken--is faith or something like it a necessary component of that kind of community (and does "another world is possible" qualify?) Or are there other barriers (lack of physical infrastructure, history, shared references/songs/cultural elements, etc.) that have nothing to do with faith?
My basic problem with Christianity, as someone who would under some circumstances identify as a Christian atheist, is that faith is so baked into the idea of what it means to be a good Christian (or at least a good Protestant) that doing the religious stuff without believing it feels fake and wrong. I do think Christianity is unique(ly bad) in this way, though! Most of my observant Jewish friends also identify as atheist without any real angst.
I know nice Christians, Jews, Muslims and Atheists.
There are many bad as well.
Their beliefs arent what makes them nice people.
Some are told that. So they pretend a false belief makes them moral. It is actually one reason religions are very harmful.
Jewish is also cultural btw.
I have a Xmas tree. It has pagan origins. I am not pagan nor Christian. Raised Catholic. I don't Santa is real.
It is cultural. Not about Christianity.
Won't find anything Christian about my decorations.
Snowmen, Santa, etc.
All just for fun.
Even most so called believing Christians spend more time, effort, and money on the Pagan aspects. One hour in church then the rest of the day watching sports, opening presents and other non religious activities.
.
This was as satisfying to read as eating the whole bowl of whipped cream.
Yet, ignoring the validity of needing a frame for the essential human experience of wonder - of awe or the evanescent sensation of glory - is an incomplete description of my experience of consciousness.
These moments - like our most miserable moments of despair - are writ so large in our emotional lives our desire for a mythology or schema to help us digest them is an insoluble opportunity and vulnerability.
Hamilton comes off as a know- it- all here. Even scientists see that there are different ways of knowing beyond science beyond secularism.
That's a super fair question. I for one think empathy is the driver. I think it's another thing that is genetic and/or learned.
I agree that 'empathy is the driver' but I don't think it is genetic.
Empathy is very much learned and unlearned. I think even the most well-meaning people tend to think women are more empathetic than men, when it’s society that drives that divide.
I think empathy is a human trait that we are born with, that can be lost when we are hurt early on- and bullied out so you can learn to be part of the oppressor class
For me, faith has to do with the fundamentally unknowable. So I’d accept arguendo this definition of “agnostic” in the sense that I don’t “know” there is a Holy Spirit in the same way I know, say, the boiling point of water is 100° C at sea level.
But I use “gnosis” differently, myself. It’s relevant to me to understand the Divine, and it’s based on personal, inward experience that simply can’t be measured scientifically. And I have no interest in trying to define or characterize other people’s inward experiences of the existence or non-existence of a Godhead.
I understand that this is a hugely important argument to some, around which there has been endless philosophical debate and no small amount of violence. But I can’t imagine why I’d want to try and convince anyone else they are wrong about their view.
I observe most of the core principles of almost all religions. none of them being fully credible completely to me. I'm not religious in any sense though. I see organized religion as a tool of the state to maintain order, as well as being the fossilized remnants of cave-man fears. It works in essence as a means of assuring that most of us don't kill as many of the rest of us as we are capable of killing without a response from the survivors. Otherwise, it would be about as pertinent as the wind.
I agree Hamilton comes off as a know it all here. Even scientists see that there are different ways of knowing beyond science beyond secularism.
Knowledge is not wisdom, ignorance is not wisdom but knowing that you don't know as you seek to question more to know greater truths even different ways of knowing is wisdom. “Ignorance is an ocean what we know is just a drop.' William James
People are still Dawkins posting? In the year of our Lord 2025?
Read again, the author dismisses the Dawkin’s type atheism pretty explicitly.
The message never seems to stick. Perhaps repetition will help!
Hmm, best not to ponder too long about why that is...
I say this as an atheist — I don’t think this is the right way to talk about religion. It’s not a matter of people “blinding” themselves to absolute truth, not a logical fallacy you can argue people out of. Behind the differing mythologies and definitions, religion is a metaphor, a model for the world and its mechanisms. When you consider that humans are *only* able to interact with reality through models, due to the limits of our senses and comprehension, it makes more sense why you can litigate the small details of individual religions with facts/science/etc, but the overarching principle of divinity remains true for so many.
And I do know many intelligent, genuinely religious people. Being intelligent, they question and interrogate their religious philosophies— but this is not the same as ingenuine faith. I recommend seeking out people like this, especially as an atheist or agnostic, and learning openmindedly about cultural and philosophical religious traditions. It has enriched my own philosophy in more ways than I can name.
Yes, I agree.
I find the author's insistent demand that even the idea of religion be abandoned, presumably because science and religion cannot coexist, more than jarring.
I have no desire to deprive people of the comfort or community they derive from religious beliefs.
I vehemently disagree with weaponized religion, or the efforts to impose religious/cultural beliefs on entire countries, but just as I refuse any authority to impose religious beliefs on me, I don't presume to impose my agnostic/atheist views on others.
History provides no evidence that humanity will "evolve" past a need for an attachment to religion/spirituality.
“You must commit to reject the facts in order to embrace the faith. You must be willing to disbelieve your lying eyes. It’s a test of loyalty, like asking a kid to shoot someone to get into a gang.” This statement is *factually* incorrect. It is in fact
a gross distortion of the motley, polychromatic nature of religion to claim that to be religious in any way *necessarily* requires denial of the facts.
But I love your substack. :-;
It absolutely does🤣
If the link I just posted doesn’t work, look up Georges Lemaitre on the website of the Museum of natural history. Or anywhere else for that matter.
This is honestly the first piece of yours that I read that I cannot agree with.
It's not that I don't agree with the gist of it, nor is it that I ultimately don't agree with the "correct stance" that you propose should be taken, it's really that I think you have a somewhat simplifying view of what it means to be religious.
You sort of ask for a purity test for true religious belief that most believers wouldn't even try to pass. Well, frankly, I guess, it might be a little different in the US these days, because what you are actually sort of describing are all sorts of "Fundamentalists" in the sense in which Zizek uses the term. What these people are kind of doing is taking the scientific paradigm and acting as if religion was in the same category, which is of course patently absurd, and if that's the issue then surely all the things that you are saying are true. However, there's an entire spectrum of religious belief in between that is sort of harder to tackle and which is constantly reconciling itself with the scientific paradigm or at least living alongside it. Take for example the entirety of "Credo quia absurdum" stances that maintain that "Yes, I have faith, but it is precisely and only faith and I acknowledge that everything that is part of the category of knowledge is part of another epistemic order altogether". (Kierkegaard being a somewhat prominent proponent of the view). Take for example the Spinozist notion - which is of course at odds with organized religion - that basically just creates a framework for a monist view of the cosmos, stuff like that.
Now, a good objection here is of course that most people don't believe like THAT. Which is absolutely true in the same sense in which most people don't think about politics in the way the readers of this substack most likely do. But also most religions also don't hold their believers metaphorical feet to the fire in swallowing their doxa wholesale all the time, even though there are dispute mechanisms of course in place, like the entire issue with the infallibility of the Pope - but that has ALWAYS been contested to some extent, yet, those people still remained clearly religious nonetheless.
I'm saying that not to be a smartass, but because there is a political stake in this issue and one that socialists and communists have been wrestling with for a long time. How to deal with people that maintain a sort of "can't touch this" resort in their brains - and I don't exactly believe that just denying that it is there or that they aren't serious about it is the best way to go about it. Instead, I think it makes more sense to zero in on what you make out as an issue of the people calling themselves "Spiritual" - which is to say that there's a yearning. This insecurity, this vague notion that there "has to be something more" might not be in itself entirely rational, BUT it is more rational than its absence. For example, there are "Atheists" that proclaim that the cosmos is vast and nothing has meaning, on a cosmic scale - which is of course misunderstanding what "meaning" actually is, insofar it is a concept BY US AND FOR US.
But I don't want to rant too long here - Marx has actually already put it best in his wonderful flowers quote, concerning the Criticism of religion. Many will know it already, but it's always worth repeating:
“Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower.”
What I am basically saying in regard to this piece, picking up the metaphor is:
it's not really the best angle of attack to point out that the chain is not worth wearing and that one has stopped wearing it altogether anyway - it seems more prudent to point out that the living flower is still waiting to be plucked.
I'm glad I'm not the only one ranting here. I love this: "this vague notion that there 'has to be something more' might not be in itself entirely rational, BUT it is more rational than its absence."
Religious comes from the Latin religio meaning rule, and means subscribing to a certain set of practices - practices which shape us towards a more loving orientation towards the world and others, and thus become our rule for life. So I am religious, inasmuch as I take the Eucharist every week, and follow a set of Christian practices. It doesn't really have much to do with what sort of propositions I myself have about the world. I don't see what you think it achieves pretending you know better to say otherwise? St Paul's development of Christianity is explicitly communist.
I am not an agnostic. I am an atheist. But I am not haughty about. Let people believe what they want to believe. I just don’t think about it very much. I am often in awe of the universe, but I am not “spiritual” about it, whatever that means. Perhaps it means they would like a god, but can’t bring themselves to actually believe the nonsense that goes with it. If that is comforting, fine.
Couldn't agree more!
I actually do use the word "spritual" when I feel enraptured by the wonder of life - but ymmv
I liked Thomas Paine's take, that religion is deeply personal - and in that sense I could give a crap about what the actual beliefs are. The idea of asking someone to behave differently based on your personal religious beliefs is completely inappropriate, and should be treated as such.
Thank you! Exactly my feeling.
Respectfully: when you say "religion" here, you mean Christianity, and you mean it in a rather hegemonic way that I'm not wild about.
The "chief demand" of being Jewish is not, in fact, faith. (This is why, as far as it goes, Jewish people refer to themselves as "observant," not "religious.")
Do you mean that you can be observant, but without faith? Does that just mean observing the rituals?
In fact it does. And being part of the community, and following the rules.
This is what I mean by the "cultural" aspects of religion. I understand the appeal of those things I just don't think they necessarily need to ask people to buy into a particular mythology to participate in them.
Yeah--my point is that not every religious tradition *does* ask you to "buy into a particular mythology." The rituals, in which I think there's a lot of value to be found, do require you to tell and retell the stories, in which I think there's a lot of value to be found, but they don't require you to take the stories literally. Indeed, I don't think the stories themselves really allow for literal interpretation most of the time.
I think there's a strong argument to be made against (and for) the kind of nationalism and sectarianism that comes from religious identities, but again, the kind of faith you're talking about seems specific to Christianity. That's OK, I guess—this is America—but it's worth naming.
One of the basic principles is that you wrestle with and interrogate the idea of God—not that you have the kind of uncritical/unwavering acceptance that you seem to mean by "faith."
Unitarian Universalism is also very much a religion (and one in the US context that I'm most familiar with), which some people embrace as a faith tradition as well as observing as a religion, that is very specifically non-dogmatic. There's no list of supernatural beliefs you must adhere to, or even probably that most or all UUs believe in or would agree on, and yet: a religion!
I have recently joined a UU fellowship and am finding great joy through that community.
To each his own. I prefer Christopher Hitchens' assertions that atheism is the refusal to believe in a supernatural dimension, and that belief in organized religion has manifestly harmed the human race: "Violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children: organized religion ought to have a great deal on it's conscience." If that's rude, so be it. But you are absolutely right: I don't believe all the made-up stuff.
All human organizations have "manifestly harmed the human race": are there even any that haven't? Government, philosophy, scholarship, business, marriage, war, trade, money, whatever. Why does religion always get singled out?
The new atheists may be haughty, but the religious pretend to know the mind of God (or that there is one). How's that for arrogance? The religious mind has been, for millenia, the far more problematic mental disposition. The atheists may be snotty, but they didn't start the Crusades or make Jihad or level the Palestinians in Gaza (to take but a couple easy to reach examples).
I like your comment except the part that denigrates atheists. Just because we don't believe in a god doesn't make us either haughty or snotty. We just don't believe, period.
Well, there are usually nations and kingdoms involved in those things as well. Atheistic nations can be just as bad. When it comes to blame, I'd put tribalism and the inevitable human desire for wealth, land and security way ahead of religion.
Not sure if you are being deliberately obtuse, but I did not claim that religion was the sole or primary source of world strife -- I was comparing levels of arrogance and resulting calamity as between the religious and the irreligious. So I picked examples where religion and its arrogance led directly to attacks on variously defined infidels and was/is clearly the primary source of the strife. Are there any similar crusades fueled primarily by raging bands of atheists against the religious? Any hardcore atheists enacting violence on their apostates as has happened to Salman Rushdie and Rabin (and countless others)? Even if I grant you that Stalin was a hater of religion (easy) and that his atheism was his primary motivation for the purges and famines (a bit harder, but I will stipulate for these purposes) and that he started wars because of it (very hard, but we'll count the internal casualties), religious wars are still orders of magnitude ahead in the body count. Richard Dawkins' mockery is simply less painful and deadly than Torquemada's devices. Oddly the religious founders often have a great deal more humility than their follows (Jesus is the first draft pick here). Inevitably then it seems, some portion of faithful followers arrogate life and death decisions to themselves, arm themselves to the teeth and wander off in search of nonbelievers to punish. My contention, put simply, is that suffering caused by the insufferable is the pretty much province of the arrogant believers, not the arrogant non-believers.
Not deliberately obtuse, just responding to the common, tiresome argument against religion in general, of which this is apparently a modification.
I don't think there's enough historical evidence for the "religious arrogance" theory. We have no idea whether the rulers who instigated these crusades were actually religious or not - they were products of their cultures, and if they were influenced by religion, then it was a handy tool for justifying what they wanted to do anyway. Arrogance, thirst for power, the urge to conquer: these things are so innate in human nature that we'd have them with or without religion.
"...the haughtiness of atheism, which combines the dissatisfaction of agnosticism with a determination to be rude about it.."
This is snide and unfair. I do not suffer dissatisfaction as an atheist. I do not consider myself an atheist because I have somehow divined the indisputable and everlasting truth about the cosmos. I am simply inclined to weigh the evidence available and adopt a belief that has the overwhelming weight of evidence behind it. This is, of course, one of the major foundations of the scientific method, which helps explain why so many scientists are atheists. That does not mean that I would not change my mind if convincing evidence of, say, a religious miracle appeared (consult David Hume for the criterion to be applied). Nor am I "rude" about my belief that a personal god does not exist. I'm not one of the "atheist bros" who push their disbelief in strangers' faces and try to convert the religious. I'm simply being honest about who I am.
If I had wanted to offer a shorter and snider comment, I could have simply written something about "the cowardice of agnosticism, which combines the intellectual dishonesty of Pascal's Wager with a hidden fear of offending the faithful." But I didn't. I met your refusal to commit with a sincere response. I wish you had done the same for those of us who consider ourselves atheists.
It sounds like what you call atheism is not that different from what I call agnostic.
David Hume was essentially agnostic.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/feb/06/religion-philosophy-hume-miracles
Thank you for your reply, but I beg to disagree. Hume's essay on miracles establishes a procedure for accepting any evidence of a personal God that basically rules out anything short of a direct message from above. All Hume's close friends and many of his enemies considered him an atheist. His deathbed statements don't reveal any agnostic doubt about an afterlife. (See E. C. Mossner, THE LIFE OF DAVID HUME.) All indications are that Hume refused to label himself publicly because it would hurt the sales of his essays and his history of England.
I believe that "what I call atheism" is very close to the belief that most atheists would describe if asked. If that is so close to what you call agnosticism, why not label yourself an atheist and end what is basically a fruitless argument? Why go out of your way to show your contempt for a group that holds beliefs so similar to yours?
Here, here
The "haughtiness" of atheism? Mate, you may want to stick to writing about unions.
Where are all these annoying, haughty atheists? Is it an American thing, a reaction to the exhausting Christian majority? That would make sense, but I've lived here 10 years and never met anyone like that. In other countries, atheism is just a personal choice, separate from the culture war.
The great part is, all this religious/philosophical hand-wringing in your post is totally optional. You can just live your life with the certainty that all human religions are made-up stories, and all we have is the real world. It's great. In fact, it's kind of freeing. Give it a shot.
Color me agnostic. This is so simply and articulately laid out by you, Hamilton. I've called myself "spiritual" for decades, and felt disappointed and frustrated with myself for not being "better" at it. No communing with the prophets or the spirits of the dead. Always on the search for "the truth." Joseph Campbell did a wonderful job describing the all too human desire to understand - to know - and weaving together the underpinnings of religious beliefs. I don't recall if subscribed to any particular religion. Lastly, the scientists, and philosophers, exploring quantum physics are bringing new concepts of consciousness intertwined with quantum science. Fascinating stuff. (See the series, "Infinite Potential" and Bohm & Krishnamurti.) I'll always be a seeker, more than a believer. Long-winded way of saying: well done!
I've read practically all of Joseph Campbell's writings and have heard many of his lectures in person. Though he never stated this explicitly, his words show he was most aligned with the Advaita Vedanta philosophy of India interpreted through a Jungian lens.
On what is I know an extremely limited experiential level, the people I know who loudly identify themselves as religious and regularly attend services are, every single one of them, all about a rigid social hierarchy in which they imagine themselves being at or near the top. And money. I'm sure there are religious people out there who actually wrestle with faith and want answers, but I've never met them. Or I've met them but not known this because they don't talk about it. So when someone tells me their religious my presumption is that they're filled with hate and rage and have joined with others to cause harm--but it's okay because they have a story about a god that lets them define their violence as justice. My point being that I think you're overlooking that for many people "religion" is and always has no different than being part of any other club or gang. No faith or belief required.
A moral compass is essential in life. Religion is not the only method for acquiring morality. Clearly we see this in politics and fake religiosos. Religions also have gaps in morality. Anti-gay, racism, pro-wealth. Religions are fools trickery. Pomp and awe for the masses.
I would posit the religion is not any way to acquire morality. People drop the parts of religion they don't like, adhere to the parts they do, and pretend that they do it because god told them to...
Religion, believing in a god, believing in something outside of yourself can be comforting. The world can be a scary place, it only makes sense that human beings would create a "shelter" to protect themselves from an indifferent universe. Not everyone needs a religion or faith in something "spiritual". But many people do. I'm fine with it, just don't dictate to me what I should believe in and what I shouldn't.
So what do atheists do when they need comforting? We all build up our self-esteem and faith in the future on some kind of belief system, which is primarily provided by our culture so it may be invisible. ("At least I'm not like those silly people who believe in stuff" (therefore I can respect myself ...)