Religion: For or Against?

Well, crap. I will be eternally apologizing for late posting, it seems. Well, that's why I imposed a regular posting schedule--to deal with the issues that prevent me from meeting regular schedules.

Anyway, this is another miniature essay developed in response to a query. I did one on atheism, so I suppose it's only fair I do one for religion as well.

Religion is an important element of culture, and an efficient instrument for disseminating values and ideas. It is a powerful group identity, like ethnicity or nationality. Like those, it is capable of great good (consider the statistics for Christian charity, for example) or great evil (the Inquisition, suicide bombing, sectarian violence). It is capable of smaller goods (e.g. whether or not prayer 'works', it's an extremely effective way to unload stress and negative feelings) and smaller evils (interference with the lives of homosexuals because of ancient proscriptions, or interference with scientific disciplines). Religion was a primary enabler of slavery and abolition both--and the same religion, at that.

Ideally, how we live our lives should have very little to do with whether there is or isn't a God. Is the Golden Rule less valid if its source is not divine? If it is divine? But in practice, anyone can see that belief in God matters very much to people. So the best I can hope for is a marketplace of ideas, where one can practice kindness and exercise reason according to his own doctrine.

And this is the sticking point I have with religion. When it comes to the marketplace of ideas, religion is often static, if not incarcerating. The most extreme example of this is the death penalty for apostasy in Islam, still practiced in some places; that tends to discourage independent thinking. The reliance on absolute truth as the foundation of doctrine hampers the evolution of doctrine in the marketplace. Once someone has taken up fundamentalist Christianity, it's nearly impossible to budge that position for ethics or practicality or what have you.

But then...that's true of many group identities, isn't it? At the end of the day, so many choices come down to my party, my ethnicity, my country, my leader, my faith right or wrong--and how could a population of six billion people avoid grouping up? How could we get anywhere if nobody ever banded together in common cause? It's simply how civilization works. And I cannot uniquely condemn religion for the problems inherent to any large group. So I must allow it, warts and all, and try to mitigate the associated problems. Society is damage control for humanity.

The Consequences of Atheism

Brief thoughts, triggered by a discussion. The other person is Christian, hence I neglected to generalize my comparison to all religions, but that's not important. What is important is that the concept of atheism is poorly understood. In discussions of atheism, a commonly seen refrain is, "Atheism is simply the lack of belief in a God." While basically true, this definition is shallow and open to misconceptions. By expanding a little on the concept of atheism, I hope to reduce its ambiguity, and shed some insight on what it means to be an atheist.

What are the consequences of disbelief? Well, to examine that, I need to present a comparison with the consequences of belief. There is something extremely comforting about belief in God, and that is the idea that humanity's existence has a meaning preordained by God. We are special, because God made us, because God says we are special, because God cares about us. And with that comfort comes the responsibility to obey the laws God laid down in time immemorial, because that is how humanity is expected to express its meaning. I won't get into arguments about inherent sin and how that affects the meaning of humanity and so on, because that is an extremely deep topic, and not central to what I'm trying to say anyway.

So that's the basic scenario from a believer's viewpoint. What happens when we take the belief in God away? First, we remove life's preordained meaning. Some people just stop there, and wallow in the apparent meaninglessness of life without God. Christians mock them, and deservedly so. But I want to talk about atheism, not nihilism, so let's look at the rest.

Lacking belief in any divinely inspired meaning to life, and unwilling to believe that there is no meaning to life, these people are left to determine the meaning of life for themselves. Another target for Christian mockery--they think people choose atheism simply to get away from the strictures and morals of faith, and do whatever they want under the guise of relativist morality. Maybe some do. But that is a child's conception of freedom. With the freedom of self-determination comes the responsibility to seek a productive, beneficial, and meaningful philosophy of life, and to live up to that philosophy as best one can. In my view, it is this essential recognition--that the right to think independently carries the obligation to think carefully--that makes atheism a viable, positive way of life rather than a mere denial of religion.

Perspective on Religion, Prayer, and Meditation

I recently received a questionnaire from a classmate related to a class assignment, and I feel like my responses were worthwhile enough that I should lengthen my memory of them by posting them here. Some of the answers are very shallow; I plan to contemplate the questions further when I have time.

1. What is prayer to you? What is your definition of prayer?

Prayer (meditation) is a process of stillness, focus, awareness, contemplation, and understanding - in that order.
[secondary] Prayer is stress relief, an emotional buffer between my raw feelings and my actions.

2. Why do you pray?

I pray (meditate) when I am most emotional, and when I am least emotional. When I am intensely emotional, I seek to calm my feelings and restore my self-control. When I am emotionless, I seek to enter the process described above through stillness.

3. What form does your prayer take?

I quiet myself, assume a posture (no specifics other than tucked chin and straight back; it's pretty spontaneous) and focus on my breathing.

4. To whom do you pray? What is your image of God?

If I pray to anyone, I suppose it's myself. In a sense, I pray that I may improve myself.

5. How often do you pray?

Intermittently over the past five-ish years, recently increasing in frequency. I now pray (meditate) in some fashion on most days.

6. Do you feel that God ever communicates to you? How?
7. Have you ever had a time when you felt that one of your prayers was answered? Describe the incident. If not, is there a time where you feel or felt close to God?

No, and no.

8. At what point do you feel most spiritual? With whom? When?

I am most spiritual when I am surrounded by my own thoughts. In that sense, I am always alone when I am spiritual, even though I may be with other people.

9. Why are you religious (or not)?

Because I was not brought up in a religious context, I am not predisposed to believe in a higher power, which precludes a belief in most religions. When it comes to my worldview, I value the empirical over the hypothetical, the descriptive over the normative, the real over the ideal; as such, I prefer to restrict my belief in the supernatural and/or transcendent. Finally, the material plane satisfies my capacity for wonder, so that I have no real desire to add a divine element to the mix. The causes and consequences of humanity interest me more than the causes and consequences of deities.

10. Do you want to be religious or are you pushed otherwise? Why?

While going to a religious school has certainly opened my eyes to the possibilities of faith, I remain unwilling to circumscribe my worldview with religious doctrine. To adopt religion seems a limited and limiting way of life. At this time, the most religion I would allow into my life would be the admission of a higher power (Deism) mixed with elements of philosophy and meditation from various Eastern religions. And at this point, I think my beliefs would be most accurately described as agnostic, which is a shift from my atheism prior to entering Bellarmine.

Look, Mommy, I Fed the Troll

I remember a short while back, Bill Whittle wrote a post about his encounter with a troll on his daily blog stroll. A similar thing happened to me while I was perusing Hot Air (I went there following Captain Ed, since he shut down Captain's quarters *tear*). I was looking at the whole furor over some of the crazier things Obama's pastor has been saying about how the US caused 9/11 and AIDS for good measure. Now, I don't believe in guilt by association, but it's amusing to watch politicians get dragged down by these "crazy-uncle" relationships. However, as I was looking at the comments, I run across this guy named docweasel, who seems really pissed that Obama's getting questioned about all this stuff when Romney didn't get the same questions last year (never mind that he gave a whole speech about it and Obama didn't, but never mind). Ultimately he starts branching into some really hate-filled anti-Mormon bigotry, and that's where I got annoyed. So, I read his comments and his blog post on the subject, and refuted him point by point. Maybe it was pointless, but I sure had fun.

Hmmm. As it turns out, I missed a point - it seems that Reverend Wright is one of Obama's campaign advisors. Or rather, he was - Obama's thrown him under the bus now that the statements have come to light. But frankly, this doesn't really excuse Obama, since the statements were made way back in 2003. If Obama wanted to avoid being associated with that kind of rhetoric, he knew what he was bargaining for when he asked Wright to sign up. If nothing else, it'll be amusing to see what Hillary's team makes of this. After all, she's behind, and desperate to find any bit of leverage she can use to pull herself back up to Obama. That includes crazy statements made by his pastor of twenty years. Expect a lot of political poo over the next few days. Anyway, for those who enjoy this sort of thing, sit back and pass the popcorn.

......................................................

Docweasel, even assuming moral equivalence between Mormonism and what Rev. Wright is preaching (which is ridiculous), it's far more difficult to believe that Romney embraces the less palatable parts of Mormonism than that Obama endorses the worst of Wright's wrongheadedness. After all, there's no equivalence in what they have to do to distance themselves from the objectionable material. Obama merely has to attend a different UCoC church. According to your argument, Romney would have to renounce his entire religion - though I'm not religious myself, I understand that it's a bit more difficult than changing shirts or even churches (imagine that). To Romney, the objectionable parts of Mormonism are not sufficient to justify renouncing it - that's a reasonable statement, I think, given that plenty of Muslims in America say the same thing to themselves every time another bomber bites the dust in Iraq. Obama thinks Wright's statements aren't objectionable enough to justify driving to a different church every Sunday - that's an UNreasonable statement.

Anyway, moving to point-by-point refutation (I'd do this on your blog, except you won't let anyone comment on your absurdities):

* According to Mormon scripture, the founder of your church (Joseph Smith) was told by God in 1820 that all the churches of the day were “an abomination.” Do you agree with God’s view of other churches, as quoted by Joseph Smith? (Pearl of Great Price, JS-Hist 1:18-19)

Hmmm, this is refuted by THE VERY QUOTATION FROM CAPTAIN ED THAT YOU USED IN YOUR ARTICLE. You know, the "more than 100 years ago" response. Romney is not obliged to answer for what Mormons thought of other religions 190 years ago. Especially not if this doesn't translate into a prescription for action today (you know, like the Muslim prescription for action regarding non-Muslims, which STILL doesn't automatically incriminate all Muslims out there).

* According to your church’s Articles of Faith, number eight, the Book of Mormon is the “word of God.” Do you believe that?

No. Way. Mormons think the Book of Mormon is holy? It MUST be heresy. Is there some kind of rhetorical rule against demolishing straw men the opponent sets up for you?

* According to the Book of Mormon there are only two churches: the “church of the Lamb of God [presumably the Mormon church]” and the “church of the devil,” “the whore of all the earth.” Do you agree with that Mormon scripture? (Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 14:10)

Of course, no context is provided. Without the context, there's no reason to assume that the bad church is of any particular religion or even a tangible church - it could be a symbol for devil-worship, or of US Congress for all I can tell from what's given. Is this supposed to be a genuine question? How can I tell, when it's so ridiculous? Furthermore, now we're getting into the "well, the book says this, so he's bad!" arguments. Are we next going to castigate Jews because the Old Testament forbids homosexuality?

* According to the Book of Mormon a dark skin is a curse imposed by God on the unrighteous and their descendants as a punishment for sin. Do you agree with that doctrine? (Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 12:22-23, Alma 3:6, 2 Nephi 5:21-22, Jacob 3:8, 3 Nephi 2:15-16, Mormon 5:15; references to the “Lamanites” are taken to be referring to Native American “Indians”.)

Is the question "Are you a racist?" going to somehow become a better question because you attached a religious quote to it? Now I know why nobody's asking these questions; they'd get laughed out of the room.

* According to Mormon doctrine, the president of the Mormon church is a prophet of God, receiving revelations and commandments (God’s laws) directly from God. Do you believe that? (Doctrine and Covenants , 21:5, 43:3, 58:18)

According to the Old Testament, God talked to people, According to the New Testament, God talked to people. Why are you shocked that according to Mormonism, God might still be talking to people?

* One of the most sacred rituals for adult Mormons, performed only in a Mormon temple, is a ceremony called “the endowment.” Have you undergone this ritual? If so, in what year?

* To be admitted to the temple for the endowment ceremony a Mormon must be “in good standing” in the church and undergo a personal interview with church leaders, who examine the member as to whether the member obeys church commandments, supports church leaders, pays full ten percent tithe, wears the prescribed Mormon underwear, abstains from coffee, tea, alcohol, tobacco and extramarital sex, and other matters. If the member answers correctly, a pass to the temples (called a “temple recommend”) is issued, good for two years. Do you have such a temple recommend now, indicating that you are in good standing in your church?

Obviously these two questions are meant to go together, but it's not obvious what they're getting at. Is is somehow a bad thing if Romney is in good standing with the Mormon Church? Is it somehow a bad thing if he isn't? What exactly is the point of this?

* In the secret Mormon temple ceremony Mormons take an oath of obedience to “the law of the Lord.” Did you take that oath?

Well, it's no more ridiculous than having witnesses in court swear on the Bible. Again, is there any point to this question other than to figure out whether Romney is really Mormon or not?

* Before 1990, the endowment ceremony required members to take an oath of secrecy not to reveal anything that happened in the temple under penalty of death. Did you take that oath?

Who cares?

* In the temple ceremony Mormons also take a secret oath to “consecrate your time, talents and everything which the Lord has blessed you, or with which he may bless you, to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints…” Did you take that oath? Would you consider the office of the presidency of the U.S. to be a “blessing” with which the Lord had blessed you?

No, Romney isn't going to consider his happiness in this life a blessing from the Lord. It must be a lie. Like the cake. You know, this refutation is getting really boring. All these questions are meant to SOUND incriminating, but they never actually get there.

* Mormons teach that by obedience to all the commandments of Mormonism, a Mormon may attain the highest degree of heaven and ultimately become a god, creating and ruling over his own universe. Do you believe that? Is this your ultimate personal goal?

"Mormons teach" - what an ambiguous phrase. Is this supposed to be another part of the Book of Mormon, or is it something that's commonly taught, is it something a few radicals espouse, or what? Who cares what Romney's plans for the next life are, anyway? Are they going to somehow affect your judgment of his actions in this one?

* Although your church presently condemns the practice of polygamy, the scripture commanding it is still in the Mormon Doctrine and Covenants, Section 132. Many early Mormons were polygamous and married (”sealed”) to numerous wives “for eternity.” Do you believe then that there will be polygamous families in Mormon heaven?

This is the lamest question ever. Even if polygamy retroactively became a sin, even a Protestant would say that's just more time spent in purgatory, assuming you lived your life in a generally virtuous way.

* The extensive interest of Mormons in genealogical research is to enable them to perform “baptisms for the dead,” thus posthumously inducting previous generations into the Mormon church. Many non-Mormons become angry when they learn that the names of their ancestors - having often been faithful members of some other religion during life - have been used in this way. often without permission of the living descendants. The posthumous baptism of many Holocaust victims caused considerable anger among Jewish groups, and your church agreed to stop the practice as to them (but admitted that it was unable to do so). Do you feel that such anger is justified? (Would you feel anger if some voodoo cult was using your deceased grandparents’ names in some voodoo ritual, and then announcing to all the world that they were now voodoo worshippers?)

And Romney is condemned for the well-intentioned but misguided action of Mormon leaders over half a century ago because...why?

* It is well documented that Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church, secretly had many wives. Some of those women were at the same time married to other men, some were as young as fifteen, He claimed that he was commanded by God to enter into these marriages. Do you feel that these early marital practices of the church founder were really commanded by God? (See the book In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith by Mormon historian Todd Compton for detailed biographies of these wives.)

Hey, if all those wars the Old Testament documents weren't sinning because God said they weren't, why can't the same overriding authority be applied to polygamy?

* Mormons believe that when Christ returns to earth, a millennium of peace will begin under Christ’s rule (Article of Faith number ten), presumably as a single theocracy. Most Mormons believe that during that time, Mormons will be Christ’s appointed officers and that the law will conform to Mormon teachings. Do you believe that?

Translation: If the Mormons turn out to be right, do you think the Mormons will be rewarded for being right? Answer: Who cares?

* According to Mormon scripture (Doctrine and Covenants 135:3) Joseph Smith did more than any other man except Jesus Christ “for the salvation of men in this world.” Do you agree with that, keeping in mind the contributions of men like the Apostles, Saint Paul, Thomas Aquinas, Saint Augustine, Martin Luther, Martin Luther King, and others?

No way, the people who thought Smith was a prophet put him above people who weren't prophets. Unthinkable.

Damn, dude, why did I waste my time with this drivel when I could be sleeping? I love how you try to pull the moral equivalence stunt with Wright's conspiracy theories. For your next trick, I suppose you'll prove that Joseph Smith caused cancer...or something.

The feebleness of your attacks only justifies to me the suppression of them by mainstream conservative thinkers. Spewing idiocy like this will only make conservatives look bad.

This is pretty hilarious. The same fucking rightwing blogs that declared Romney’s racist, sexist, intolerant cult to be out of bounds for criticism or discussion are now piling on cherry picked quotes about Obama’s minister. You can find plenty of really hateful slurs against blacks, Jews, Catholics etc. in the book of Mormon, but, partly because of blind hatred for McCain and Romney being his main competition, blogs, just like this one, refused to allow any debate on that.

Actually, what's really hilarious (but not surprising) is that you have no f***ing clue who Ed actually supported. I won't give any hints, but it starts with a "Fred" and ends with a "Thompson". And if we're talking "racist, sexist, intolerant," why aren't there women priests n other branches of Christianity? Break out the torches and rakes and other handy implements, let's storm the Vatican!

Link me to ONE FUCKING article where Allah or anyone else talks critically about the hate filled crap Romney teaches and gets taught by his minister every fucking day of the week. Romney is a 3rd generation elder in a dynastic family of Mormon leaders. Obama just attends the church.

The sad thing is, I probably could link you to an article on Captain's Quarters that does just that if I felt like expending the effort. Since I don't, you'll just have to suck it up. And your comment only illustrates why Obama's choice is more damaging - there's less personal damage involved in not making the choice. Imagine Romney's position as a child of the second dynastic elder of the Mormon community. Imagine trying to renounce your religion and most likely your family name because bits of the holy book disparage black people. Now imagine Obama's choice between listening to Rev. Wright's rhetoric and...going to a different church. That Obama chose to listen to Wright despite the ease of not doing so demonstrates that he doesn't find it all that objectionable. Not so in Romney's case.

Now you can debate the relative evilness of what Wright says vs. the Book of Mormon all day: the point is, its JUDGING SOMEONE’S RELIGION, which none of us has the right to do, in fact, if you ARE a Christian, Jesus told you DIRECTLY NOT TO DO IT, FUCKWITS.

Idiot. I can finally say it because you finally made it clear that you missed the entire point of the discussion. WE'RE NOT DISCUSSING OBAMA'S RELIGION. Being a card-carrying member of the United Church of Christ is not the objectionable thing here. The objectionable thing is that he sits and listens to Wright (and helps support him financially) as Wright makes these ridiculous speeches, when it wouldn't be difficult to distance himself from all that. On the other hand, your assaults on Romney's Mormonism are definitely judging religion, though your judgment is incredibly weak if this is the best you can offer. I'd hope you could come up with more, except then I might have to do another monster comment like this, and I don't want to do that.

Some Iowa Statistics, or Why Huckabee Isn't Winning

There have been numerous comments on the incongruity of having Iowa as the first primary state, given how non-representative it is of the nation as a whole. The primary factor is the disproportionate number of evangelical voters in Iowa (though to the largely religion-blind Democratic party this is negligible); the SF Chronicle reported that around 60% of Republican caucus-goers were self-described evangelical Christians according to exit polls, which is an obvious aid to Mike Huckabee. Michael Medved has a post up at Townhall.com analyzing the strength of Huckabee's evangelical boost in Iowa. Unfortunately, in the process of concluding the bias isn't strong at all, he completely screws up the statistical analysis. I'll critique his post first and then offer my own conclusions about the data he presents.

Michael Medved's conclusions are unorthodox if nothing else. He compares Mike Huckabee's support among Evangelicals (46%) to his support among women, the poor, and the young (40, 41, and 40% respectively) as well as the total of 34% of caucus attendees. This leads him to the conclusion that Evangelicals did not differ significantly from Iowa Republicans as a whole. Well, I have news for Mr. Medved: this is because Iowa as a whole is evangelical. The vote counts from women, the poor, the young, and everyone are skewed by the huge proportion of evangelicals present. Thus no real conclusion can be drawn from the data Mr. Medved offers. He does basically the same analysis with Mitt Romney's numbers, making the argument that the difference between 19% of evangelical voters and 24% of overall voters isn't large, and again missing the skew in the overall numbers from the evangelical numbers. He uses this to argue that Romney's "phoniness" alienated voters in Iowa, without any evidence to support the phoniness (I know it's there, but it's sloppy to not show any since he's giving it as THE reason why Huckabee beat Romney); this conclusion might be valid if the statistics pointed that way, but they don't. There goes half his post right there.

Medved also points out here that Huckabee didn't really win the evangelical vote because he didn't get a majority; he got only 46%. But in the same article he points out that the next most popular candidate among evangelicals was Romney with 19% of the vote; the other 4 major vote-getters split 35% of the evangelical vote. In head-to-head contests among evangelicals, Huckabee beat each other candidate by at least a 70-30 split, and it's highly unlikely that Huckabee is the last choice of the 54% of evangelicals who voted for someone else. Medved fails to recognize how dominating 46% of the vote is in a 6-way race, though it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize the difference between 46% and the average of 16.66...% if votes were divided evenly.

But Medved really gets in over his head with the latter part of his post, where he attempts to blame Huckabee's low numbers among non-evangelicals on anti-religious bias. His justification? The large difference between the non-evangelical number (13%) and the overall vote. That's right, Huckabee's unpopularity among non-Christian conservatives is due to anti-religious bias, and we know this because Huckabee's just so darn unpopular among the non-Christian conservatives compared to everyone else. Of course, I know what he's actually trying to say, which is that Huckabee's unpopularity among non-Christian conservatives is so far out of line with Iowa Republicans generally that there must be some underlying reason, and anti-religious bias is the most likely (though again he provides no evidence for this claim). But the real reason, again, is the huge number of evangelicals. Because evangelicals make up such a huge percentage of Iowa caucus-goers, and because there's such a huge difference between the evangelical and non-evangelical votes (46% to 13%, for reference), the result will obviously be a large difference between the total vote and the evangelical vote. All one can conclude using Mr. Medved's methods is that evangelicals like Huckabee more than non-evangelicals; the rest of his post is a patchwork of unsupported conclusions and poor analysis of statistics.

This is not to say, however, that no conclusions can be drawn from the data Michael Medved provides. First, a trivial calculation: Huckabee's support among evangelicals was 10% greater than total support in Iowa, while the difference between the non-evangelical and total votes was 21%. Since this data would imply that 70% of the caucus-goers were evangelicals, which differs from the 60% estimate by a significant amount, one can conclude that there was a "decline to state" option; furthermore, voters that took that option liked Huckabee about as much as evangelicals. One can guess that the majority of the "decline-to-state" voters were actually evangelicals.

Second, a more significant calculation: What happens if we make Iowa more representative of the nation as a whole? Iowa's evangelical vote represented 60% of the total, but the percentage of evangelicals nationwide is only about 15%. Since the percentage of Iowa evangelicals is about 40%, and evangelicals turned out in greater numbers to vote for the Huckster (a ratio of 3 to 2), let's be generous and guess that the evangelical vote in a more representative state would make up 25% of the total (a 5 to 3 ratio - I AM being generous here). Then we can extrapolate the voting percentages Mr. Medved provided, with 75% of the hypothetical representative state giving Huckabee 13% of their support (non-evangelicals) and 25% of the state giving Huckabee 46% of their support (evangelicals) for a total of 19.8% of the primary vote in a representative state. By contrast, Mitt Romney would get 75% of this state to give him 33% of the vote and 25% of the state to give him 19% of the vote, for a total of 29%. Though Mr. Medved does not link to the source for the numbers he cites, he does say that the other candidates all had far less support from evangelicals (less than 10% each), so their numbers would be even further boosted by this conversion. So the conclusion one can draw from this set of numbers is that the disproportionate number of evangelicals in Iowa actually played a HUGE role in propelling Mike Huckabee to the top. Of course, we knew that already - even if Michael Medved still has no clue.

Anyway, this is why I still think Huckabee has no realistic chance at the Republican nomination. Without the evangelical base, he has nothing that would appeal to conservative voters. My justification of this position another time.