The Hammer That is Religion
This one may be a little less than timely, but I wanted some time to really think about this before writing it. My mind, as it is wont to do, recently drew a connection between what to some might seem to be disparate and unrelated events: Mitt Romney’s “freedom requires religion” speech, and an attack on some Jewish youngsters by some putative Christians.
One of the obstacles before Romney as he pursues the Republican presidential nomination is his faith: he is Mormon, and many of the fundamentalist Christians who form the party’s base consider his religion to be heretical and cult-like. So Romney gave a speech about “Faith in America,” with the goal of assuring people that his religious beliefs would not influence the way he governs should he be elected president.
Unlike John F. Kennedy, who overcame the stigma of his Catholicism by making clear that he believed “in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute,” Romney made a case for faith-based governance, declaring that “freedom requires religion, and religion requires freedom.” Romney promised that should he be elected president, he will “serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause, and no one interest.” But he made it clear that he believes faith in God is the bedrock upon which our nation was founded: “In John Adams’ words: ‘We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion… Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people.’ ”
Romney diluted his message of religious plurality by pandering to hardcore Christians, explicitly making clear that while Mormons may have a different spin on things, they accept Jesus Christ as their “personal savior.” He made no overt attempts to similarly connect, for example, with Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, or (perish the thought) atheists.
(As an aside, Mike Huckabee, another contender for the Republican nomination, tried to take a swipe at Romney by “asking” if Mormons believed Jesus and Satan were “brothers.” When he was called out, he apologized, but I remain convinced that Huckabee was merely sorry his remarks failed to sail under the mainstream media’s radar.)
The idea that “freedom requires religion, and religion requires freedom” is nothing new. After all, the Declaration of Independence has as its premise that we are “endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” The concept, which is grounded in the ideas of the philosopher John Locke, is that humans have certain rights by virtue of “natural law,” and that no government has legitimate authority to deny us these rights.
While there are those who believe such rights flow from the existence of a Divine Creator, one could just as easily argue that these rights are inherently ours because they represent the natural aspirations of the human race, flowing from the survival instinct and a desire to do that which makes us happy. One could also argue that these rights are inherent because history has shown that governments that respect those rights have had the greatest success providing a modicum of prosperity, security, and stability to their people.
That’s why I find the cut of Romney’s jib so troubling. I am an advocate of not tinkering much with what the Founding Fathers created, because it has worked pretty damn well. But our nation was not created without flaws: we had to fight a war to end the scourge of slavery within our borders, and women had to wage a fight of sorts to be granted the right to vote. By the same token, I believe our Founding Fathers’ views about religion and spirituality must also be open to examination and re-consideration.
If anyone believes that secularism is the source of our society’s ills, and religion the cure-all, one has to look no further than a recent assault against some Jewish youngsters on a NYC subway. They were attacked by putative Christians who were attempting to avenge the death of their savior at the hands of Jews on Chanukah (these “Christians” weren’t exactly the brightest bulbs in the box).
Religion to me is like a hammer. It is a tool that is neither inherently good nor bad. A hammer, after all, can be employed alongside other tools to build a house for Habitat for Humanity. In that case, it is a transformative tool that turns raw materials into the manifestation of the American Dream for people who otherwise couldn’t afford it. On the other hand, one can use a hammer to crush someone’s skull. In a similar fashion, religion can inspire people to great acts of compassion, or even lifetimes devoted to the service of others. Mother Theresa is but one example. Religion can also be the motive for violence, however, as the NYC subway attack sadly makes clear. Atheism is no different. There are movements such as Marxism that seek to enforce atheism as part of a rigid and ultimately self-defeating dogma that has resulted in violence and the restriction of human liberty. On the flip side, the secular humanist movement, comprising a number of atheists, has been at the forefront in many cases of defending human rights.
This is why I believe it is inaccurate to say that “freedom requires religion.” I believe it is more accurate to say that freedom includes the right to worship – or not to worship – as one’s conscience dictates, and that religion is best served by a government that stays out of matters of faith. And this is why I am saddened that to this day presidential candidates feel they have to demonstrate their “Christian street creds.”
December 15th, 2007 at 8:54 am
Bill, I think it is necessary to make a distinction between someone who, motivated by religion, seeks out and attacks Jews or blacks or gays, and someone who, being a bigot, attacks Jews or blacks or gays, and in order to explain it, draws on the tradition of racism that is unfortunately entwined with the history of Christianity. I don’t know if I’m explaining myself well, but I don’t think the attack in the subway was motivated by Christianity the way, say, 9.11 was motivated by Islam (without getting into the issue of whether this is really Islam or Christianity). It is more a case of thugs drawing for their hatreds on the layer of antisemitism that is part of christian history. If instead they would have attacked them saying that Jews invented capitalism, we wouldn’t say that their attack was motivated by marxism.
Without having heard the speech in question, I assume that what Romney meant was the same old story that you require religion to have morality — in this case American morality. In some deep philosophical way that is true. Despite the attempts of philosophers from the time of your founding fathers (as well as later) to base morality on scientific principals such as natural rights and natural laws, is seems (to me at least philosophically) that morality has no objective basis but is rather an act or a choice motivated by a state of mind, a belief, that something is right or wrong. So in a sense, it does require faith, but in a broader sense than religion. Unfortunately people like Romney take it a a narrower and narrower sense: first that there can be no morality without religious faith, and then that there can be no morality without Christian faith.
There are certain attempts by various religions to join together against atheists based on the assumption that any religion is better than none. But of course, once you bring in religion you also bring in the differences between religions and their claims to exclusivity.
December 15th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
he is Mormon, and many of the fundamentalist Christians who form the party’s base consider his religion to be heretical and cult-like.
Just to clarify something, this kind of thinking is not limited to fundamentalists–witness Laurence O’Donnel’s recent attack. Many “liberal” thinkers seem to have a special dislike for Mormons (possibly motivated more by the high degree of loyalty to the GOP that Mormons have rather than by any religious argument).
I don’t give Huckabee even the credit you do–I think he was thrilled that his “question” came out. The only bad thing is that it came out in a week were he had too many other problems. Huckabee is the one guy who could make me vote for John Edwards (Ghack!)
Not really a Romney fan either but I can see where he felt that he had to talk about Mormons being Christians, since there seems to be a belief among some that they aren’t (these are probably the same folks who make a distinction between Catholics and Christians as well).
I think it would have been smart to include atheists when he gave his speech. Missed opportunity.
I am becoming gloomier and gloomier about this race. I thought Hillary had a lot of smarts but the last few weeks have made me wonder, Gulliani seems likely to run roughshod over Washington politics (which sounds great unless you want to get things done) and McCain is going nowhere.
Maybe they’ll start smartening up post Iowa. Right now I’m leaning a bit toward Obama but I don’t really see him as having great presidential potential. A few more years of seasoning, maybe then.
December 15th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
What would you think about an Obama Edwards ticket (or vice versa)? I don’t know how good it would be, but there’s something poetic about a southern white man and a black man being running mates.
December 15th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
Micha, while I agree that Christianity is probably not central to the lives of the thugs who assaulted the Jewish youngsters, religious differences were nevertheless the rationale for the attack. It serves to underscore my point: religion can be divisive, even incendiary. People who otherwise care very little for religion can be motivated to pick up its banner to give themselves a justification for their hatred.
I also disagree that there is anything even partly true about religion or spiritual faith being prerequisites for morality. There are secular humanists who have argued — and not without merit — that religious ideas about morality are merely the codification of concepts that are actually as natural to us as our baser instincts. After all, a just and moral society functions more smoothly than one that is not. The idea that Mussolini kept the trains running on time was a misnomer. Dictatorships are often inefficient, but no one is allowed to complain.
Bill Mulligan, I realize that liberals can be just as bigoted towards Mormons as fundamentalist Christians, but I tend to doubt liberals will have a great influence over the Republican nomination. Romney was clearly focused on winning over conservative Christians, and will worry about the rest of the bigots if he becomes the Republican nominee.
December 15th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
I keep trying to come up with a well reasoned response that would add something to this other than a verbose “Hear, hear!” The one point that I keep coming back to is the differences in the media between the Kennedy era and now. When Kennedy was speaking of his faith, the broadcast media didn’t have the 24 hour news channels nor the glut of punditiferous analysts to go over every syllable uttered like some linguistic astrologists to tell us PRECISELY what something a candidate said twenty three years ago on a college entrance essay means. There are SO many issues out there, and so many positions, conservative, liberal, right wing, left wing, centrist, whatever. We are constantly beaten over the head right now with information, whether over the air, over the internet, or by the two resident loudmouths that argue every point where we work. Unfortunately, given the all-talk, all the time nature of many of these news outlets, they have air time to fill. Fill it they must, and do, so stories that even ten years ago would’ve maybe gotten thirty seconds of air time become major blog fodder and we all end up hearing about it ad nauseum. Throw into the mix all the people that hitch their particular wagon to a personality and will gladly follow wherever they lead, along with all the noise the personality in question makes. When you put all this in the blender, it’s easy to feel like the starving man that died in a freezer full of food. There’s information all over the place, but how much is accurate, up to date(Heaven FORBID you talk about a speech that’s more than five minutes old!!) and not being interpreted eight ways to Sunday?
December 16th, 2007 at 7:58 am
Sean, I believe you are dead on about the influence the 24-hour news phenomenon has had on the presidential race. I wonder, though: is this a chicken-and-egg conundrum? In other words, are the news channels going on about nothing because the candidates aren’t saying anything all that substantive or inspiring? Or is the parse-everything-to-death news coverage we have today making it impossible for candidates to be inspiring?
Bill Mulligan had an interesting point about Kennedy and Catholicism. There are those who don’t consider Catholics to be Christians — which is ironic given that one can argue based on scripture that the Catholic church was the one that Christ himself founded — but Kennedy rose to the challenge by promising to champion a principle he called “absolute:” the separation of church and state. Romney’s speech was less inspiring in my view because it sounded as though it was written in part by demographers. On the one hand, he declared he would “no one religion, no one group, no one cause, and no one interest;” yet on the other hand, he felt the need to make clear he believes Christ is his savior — as if that should matter in a nation that claims to respect religious pluralism — and argued that religious faith is the basis for morality (as though atheists and agnostics are all a bunch of crazy pagans who eat their own babies!). Again, I wonder: what would have happened if Romney had showed some balls and articulated what I believe to be a truly American principle: that government should stay the hell out of matters of faith, except to ensure that all faiths can practice as they see fit without trampling on others’ fundamental rights?
December 16th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Bill Mulligan, I realize that liberals can be just as bigoted towards Mormons as fundamentalist Christians, but I tend to doubt liberals will have a great influence over the Republican nomination.
True, that.
The fact that Huckabee has even gotten this far tells you how big an influence the fundamentalists are. I swear, this better be a short lived flirtation…
December 16th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
I think part of the problem is presentation. In history class and other outlets, we’re taught all about the great statements made by politicians past. Ask not what your country can do for you, the only thing we have to fear, and carry a big stick for when the buck stops here, etc. So, does that lead to an unnatural expectation, that every word uttered by a politician will be Golden, some Wisdom That Will Endure Through The Ages?
Regarding the seperation of church and state, how wide is that seperation? Assume I’m a politician. Assume also that I go to church every Sunday. Now, let’s say a controversial bill comes up, and I vote on it a certain way that happens to go along with what the priest at chuch and the bishop down the road and the rabbi on the other side of the street and the coven on the other side of town are all saying about it. Okay, no conflict of interest there, right? Now, say Issue 2 comes up, everyone’s divided, and I happen to vote in a way that MIGHT be seen as voting with my church. Now, some people might call me out on it, saying that I’m just going along with what My Group wants. Now, in a situation like that, assuming I’m voting my conscience and where the facts point to, how can I prove that I’m NOT being unduly influenced?
The fact that Huckabee has gotten this far and I’ve yet to hear a Samuel Clemens reference or the word “Huckster” come out is actually kind of impressive.
December 16th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Democrats are holding their fire on Huckabee, praying the republicans are dumb enough to nominate him.
However, I also recall being at a Ralph Nader speech back in 1979 or so where he was giddy over the Republicans nominating Reagan, who was going to be easy pickings. So you never know. But Huckabee is no Ronald Reagan. heck, he’s no Ronald McDonald.
December 16th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Nader’s another one with a name unfortunate for politics. However, were I in advertising, I’d want him for a TV ad. “I’m Ralph Nader, and I own a Zenith.”
December 16th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Sean, I’m comfortable with a politician taking a particular stand that is consistent with his or her religion as long as that position isn’t in conflict with the U.S. Constitution. One of the Ten Commandments prohibits killing, and I concur.
December 17th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Sean: “The one point that I keep coming back to is the differences in the media between the Kennedy era and now. When Kennedy was speaking of his faith, the broadcast media didn’t have the 24 hour news channels nor the glut of punditiferous analysts to go over every syllable uttered like some linguistic astrologists to tell us PRECISELY what something a candidate said twenty three years ago on a college entrance essay means.”
Hear, hear!
Bill Myers: “Micha, while I agree that Christianity is probably not central to the lives of the thugs who assaulted the Jewish youngsters, religious differences were nevertheless the rationale for the attack. It serves to underscore my point: religion can be divisive, even incendiary. People who otherwise care very little for religion can be motivated to pick up its banner to give themselves a justification for their hatred.”
Nevertheless the distinction is important. When some ignorant thug draws on the history of Christianity to justify his antisemitism, this is a sign that the old antisemitism is still living under the surface in some dark places. This is sad, but it is not surprising. We know that our cultural and religious history includes such hatreds, nor that these kind of thugs are drawn to these dark places. It is less reflective of Christianity today. But when a cleric and leader like Huckabee makes a bigoted comment about Mormons, it is a little more alarming: it feels like a deliberate attempt to revive and rejuvenate old hatreds. It feels not like a remnant of the ugly past, but of people sliding back toward that past.
One good thing about Romney winning would be that somebody beyond the accepted Christian spectrum would be president. It is not that it is important to me that there’s a non (exactly) Christian president as much as when it does happen I’d rather it’s not a Jew that breaks the barrier.
Bill Myers: “There are secular humanists who have argued — and not without merit — that religious ideas about morality are merely the codification of concepts that are actually as natural to us as our baser instincts. After all, a just and moral society functions more smoothly than one that is not. The idea that Mussolini kept the trains running on time was a misnomer. Dictatorships are often inefficient, but no one is allowed to complain.”
Yet morality is not identical to utility, nor should it be. If we look at humanity from outside from a sociological or biological point of view we can say that morality is a phenomenon of human society that serve biological and sociological purposes. But this is a not enough to understand what morality is. It describes more what morality does than what it is. It is like saying that love is something that draws people together and is probably biological. But what is that something? Well it is a state of mind, an emotion, an action.
Also, the fact is that people don’t always behave morally or in the same moral way. It is not like a biological function that is forced on us by nature. So it is not enough to say that morality exist or works well for humans. You have to look at it from the inside. And from that point of view morality is a belief that one should act in one way rather than another. So the point I was trying to make is that morality does requite people to believe in something — namely that something is or isn’t moral –, but it certainly doesn’t have to a religion, or spirituality or anything like that. But it is certainly more than thinking thata moral act functions better for society or is better for the survival of the species.
(I’m not sure I made myself clear. It’s a tough subject).
Bill Myers: “Bill Mulligan had an interesting point about Kennedy and Catholicism. There are those who don’t consider Catholics to be Christians — which is ironic given that one can argue based on scripture that the Catholic church was the one that Christ himself founded.”
Catholicism claim is that it is a direct continuation of the church founded by Christ. Protestants claim to have returned or rediscovered the true church forgotten or taken over by the Catholic church. The first assumption ignores the changes that catholicism has went through over the years after Christ; the second disregards the fact that catholicism is part of Christian history spanning many years, and that protestantism was a modern movement not a return to the ‘real’ past.
It amazes me that the conflict between catholics and protestants still survives.
Bill Myers: “what would have happened if Romney had showed some balls and articulated what I believe to be a truly American principle: that government should stay the hell out of matters of faith, except to ensure that all faiths can practice as they see fit without trampling on others’ fundamental rights?”
I’m not sure it was lack of courage. I’m not sure Romney believes in this principle.
Sean: “Regarding the seperation of church and state, how wide is that separation?”
There are three issues here. One is that the government should not enforce religion and should defend religious pluralism. That’s constitutional. The second issue is of politicians using religion as a political banner. That’s permissible but pretty rotten. The third is when a leader make decisions based on their personal religious beliefs. That’s also permissible. But is a matter of concern at times. It is better if religious beliefs are not too dominant in their mind, and that the principle of religious pluralism also exists in their minds; i.e. that they are not too committed to one narrow point of view.
December 17th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Wow, that was more long winded than jerry. I win.
December 20th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Yeah, but would you WANT that prize, Micha?
Thinking about all this, seeing people talking about how the people involved were acting AS Christians, Jews, Muslims, whatever. A wise friend of mine said once that no matter what religion you subscribe to, it’s your own personal “edition” of that religion, because everything is interpreted through your frame of reference. That’s not what bothers me about that arguement, nor is the “All X-religion types act this way.” What bothers me is the way the arguements are worded. You can still believe in any religious teaching you want and still be one step up from pond scum. Religion is not the end-all be-all of defining a person. The PERSON is the end all be all, and for most, religious beliefs are just a small portion of that person.
December 20th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
Sean, I tried to make the same point to a religious guy once. But the thing is that religion seeks to be the end-all be-all in a person’s life, or at least that’s what religious fundamentalists want, to have religion be the sole aspect of people’s life, the sole authority, the sole object of interest. But in reality people do have different aspects of their life, and religion is one of them, and there’s really nothing wrong with that. People should respect each others religious identities as they would respect other different aspects of their life.
By the way, i just read PAD’s blog about this incident. I kind believe that guy Lingster, or something like that. He was saying such nonsense I considered posting something despite my decision to stop my involvement in that blog. But what’s the point?
December 20th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
You know, I’ve been reading this thread for a few days now and trying to come up with something intelligent to add, but I just can’t do it.
A Republican politician who’s running for office made a hypocritical and insultingly shallow speech to play to the Religious Right. Not new, not unexpected and no where near as news worthy as it was made out to be. Yeah, it did take a bit of extra hypocrisy to do his “(MY) religion shouldn’t matter” speech so soon after he said that he wouldn’t have a Muslim on his cabinet because, basically, there weren’t enough of them in the U.S. for them to matter in his opinion and turn around in the same speech and basically dismiss anyone who chooses the path of no faith. But it was hardly surprising. He’s a Republican Presidential hopeful who was playing to his base. What else was he going to say? It was almost less likely that he would espouse more liberal leaning views in that setting then it would be to have one of the Democratic Presidential hopefuls coming out and declaring that abortions need to be criminalized tomorrow and that we need more “successes” like Iraq in our future.
As for the dim little thugs out there who commit crimes because their religion justifies it… Well, their just dim little thugs. I’ve said before that it’s not the belief, it’s the person. There’s more then enough in Christianity, Judaism and Islam that, should a person want to use it so, someone who wants to be an ass to other “non-believers” can and will do so and can point to any of a number of out of context, and some in context, passages to support them. Dim little thugs, bigots and racists will use any excuse available to them to justify and rationalize their hatred and acts of violence.
Even these “Christians” that attacked some Jewish fellows because the Jews “killed Jesus on Chanukah” don’t really qualify as an example of what’s inherently wrong with organized religion. Even if you could go to there church (assuming that any of them actually go to one) and found an entire church full of people swearing blindly that Jews are evil because they killed Jesus on Chanukah, it wouldn’t really be an example of what’s wrong with religion. It would be a huge example of what’s wrong with people though.
People don’t need religion to hate someone. They’ll find an excuse without it if they really want to hate. They look funny, they talk funny, they smell funny, their skin is the wrong color, they dress funny, they eat strange foods, they’re gay, they’re from the wrong neighborhood, they’re from the wrong country, they’re rich, they’re poor, “they” attacked us on 911, “they” attacked us a Pearl Harbor, etc. And yes, I’ve heard the Pearl Harbor one in my lifetime from a guy younger then me.
Even lack of education isn’t an excuse. Yeah, I can see the subway twits being thick as a brick and getting to actually know people from the group you hate sometimes cures the stupidity, but even very educated and very smart people hate for irrational reasons just because they want to. If a human being wants to hate, they’ll find a reason to do so whether it’s religious, secular or somewhere in between.
Taking it back to religion specifically…
Tonight I was invited to a nice little holiday function at the Governor’s Mansion. I had to go into work immediately afterwards, so I was in full uniform. As is my habit when in uniform, I used the phrase “Happy Holidays” when speaking to someone. Hey, it works for everyone and, even if you’re talking to Christians exclusively, it covers Christmas and the New Year’s holiday. Counting Jenn and I, there were about 150 to 200 people there. Almost every single person there took zero offense to that. One older woman looked at me as though I had just spit in her soda and informed me that she believed in Jesus and that this season was devoted to him and that I would therefore address it to her as ”Merry Christmas” as was proper. My word balloon said, “Yes, ‘Mam.” My thought balloon said, “Ignorant bitch.” Good thing I was in full uniform.
The point of that? It ain’t the religion; it’s the ignorant bit… It’s the individual.
December 20th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
There’s a vindictive, ignorant piece of me that would like to rub people like that woman’s face in it and have you say something like, “Actually, for me it’s Yule that all you Christian types stole all the Pagan traditions from.” Just to see her head explode in pretty Christmas colors. You also could’ve pointed out that New Years would apply, considering Dick Clark catered the Last Supper.
I’d never say any of it, mind you, but the visual’s fun. I mean, “Wha–who–Well I Never! BOOOM!” Head chunks all over the place, sort of a Christmas Scanners.
December 21st, 2007 at 12:50 am
Yeah, but even given what I thought at the time, why sink to her level?
December 21st, 2007 at 12:03 pm
People are looking for reasons to be offended. Jews have no reason to be offended by by someone saying to them ‘merry Christmas’ or have a problem replying with the same phrase. And Christians should find nothing offensive with a Hanuka greeting. The general happy holidays or season greetings are also good if they are not motivated by an unnecessary PC attitude.
December 21st, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Jerry: “Even these ‘Christians’ that attacked some Jewish fellows because the Jews ‘killed Jesus on Chanukah’ don’t really qualify as an example of what’s inherently wrong with organized religion.”
No, but the attack does serve to illustrate the point I actually made: that Romney was wrong to assert that religious belief and morality automatically go hand-in-hand, because they don’t. If they did, you wouldn’t have Christian kids (and they identified themselves as such — one of them even displayed a Jesus tattoo on one of his arms) committing assaults. Even if you don’t like the example — which is a valid one, no matter how minutely one tries to parse it — I can easily cite dozens of other examples, big and small, of religious people acting badly in the name of their religion. I can also cite just as many examples of atheists and agnostics exhibiting morality.
“Is it the religion or is it the person” is a false dilemma. Religion is not like the rain or the sky, it is something created by humans. It is neither inherently good nor inherently bad.
December 21st, 2007 at 3:16 pm
““Is it the religion or is it the person” is a false dilemma. Religion is not like the rain or the sky, it is something created by humans. It is neither inherently good nor inherently bad.”
Let’s not forget to other factors, history and society. Religion is an aspect of society at a given time. It affects society but society affects it. It changes as society does. In the past Christian society was antisemitic and Christianity promoted a justified that ideology. as society changed and antisemitism was less accepted the Christian religion likewise rejected it. Today antisemtism has been marginalized in Christian society and religion, and you are more likely to find it in the margins among ignorant thugs (but not only).
Christianity or Christians should not be held responsible for the actions of these thugs so long as they are aware that the thugs in question were drawing from notions that are part of the past of Christianity.
December 21st, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Micha: “In the past Christian society was antisemitic and Christianity promoted a justified that ideology.”
Well, it’s not like you can’t find passages in the Bible to justify that or other kinds of hatred and bigotry. It reminds me of a line from the Kevin Smith movie, “Dogma,” where the “13th apostle” (played by Chris Rock) makes a case that ideas are better than beliefs, because ideas can be changed, but people kill over beliefs. I think religions throughout the world would be well served to dwell on spiritual ideas rather than rigid beliefs, and accept that their ideas must be constantly subjected to re-examination and re-consideration.
December 21st, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Judaism definitely has it’s share of bigotry in its traditions.
We should admit to ourselves that religions were created a long time ago by people whose beliefs and customs would seem to us to be racist, chauvinist, and violent. So religions should learn to adapt, remember the past, but also remember that some traditions need to be ignored. That’s the thing with extreme conservatives and fundamentalists: they are unwilling to give up or they want to return to the bad traditions without any critical thoughts.
On the other hand recognizing that most religions reflect the customs of different times should make us more forgiving to those religions if they have shown a willingness to adapt. There is good in them too. There was good in the past too, despite the racism etc. We shouldn’t apply present day morality to the past, but we also shouldn’t accept ancient morality from people in the present.
Judaism is a little different than Christianity an Islam, but not because it is immune to bigotry, but because of various circumstances.
1) Christianity in Islam wish to convert everybody, Judaism does not, it is limited to the members of a certain nation. However, it is quite possible that given certain historical circumstances Judaism would have gone in a different direction. i believe Jews in helenistic times forcibly converted one or two local tribes, although it was never in the position to spread the way Christianity and Islam did.
2) Historical circumstances prevented Jews from acting on their own chauvinistic impulses for a long stretch of the history, but this did not say they are immune of the same impulses that have afflicted other people.
3) Jews tend to look inward more often than outward.
4) The old testament is less prescriptive than the New Testament (except for Leviticus and Deuteronomy — the more prescriptive aspects of Judaism (and there are many) ate part of other texts. between Deuteronomy and the prophets you have mostly stories, and the prophets are mostly focused on internal criticism.
5) All of the people who were subject for hatred by the old testament are long gone.
December 21st, 2007 at 9:12 pm
“that Romney was wrong to assert that religious belief and morality automatically go hand-in-hand, because they don’t.”
That’s part of the problem. Generally, religious beliefs are fairly stable, immobile things. Morality changes as you get more and more different kinds of people making up the whole. What I say is moral could be different from what Bill says which could be different from Micha etc. etc. etc. Now, generally, when I hear a person of influence speaking of morality or religion, I always get the feeling that they’re speaking of THEIR religion, THEIR morality, and everyone else is excluded. That’s the way religion is set up, THIS is what we believe, THIS is the Holy Word, Believe or you aren’t ONE OF US. This country isn’t like that. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Pagans, Atheists(in no particular order, there) are all included as citizens of this country. When someone is trying to get him or herself elected, divisive statements are troubling BECAUSE there shouldn’t be any seperation between us. We’re all Americans in this country. Having a leader that too often quotes scripture or speaks of God or whatever is exclusionary.
December 22nd, 2007 at 10:08 am
“No, but the attack does serve to illustrate the point I actually made: that Romney was wrong to assert that religious belief and morality automatically go hand-in-hand, because they don’t. If they did, you wouldn’t have Christian kids (and they identified themselves as such — one of them even displayed a Jesus tattoo on one of his arms) committing assaults. Even if you don’t like the example — which is a valid one, no matter how minutely one tries to parse it — I can easily cite dozens of other examples, big and small, of religious people acting badly in the name of their religion. I can also cite just as many examples of atheists and agnostics exhibiting morality. “
I’ve no real argument with that. I just wasn’t all that surprised to see a Republican Presidential hopeful pandering in such a way (and, lets face it, he wasn’t going to tell his target base that, while religion is nice, religion really isn’t THAT big a deal compared to the quality of the person who holds it) or that a group of uneducated monkeys assaulted those guys on the subway while displaying an unbelievable massive ignorance of the faith the claim to posses. They were petty thugs. Had they not had “their religion” to lean on, they would just as likely attacked those guys because Jews are greedy, stealing money from the hard working people of the community who really deserve it, etc. They wanted to hate and they wanted to harm and they would have found a reason no matter what.
December 22nd, 2007 at 11:23 am
Yes, but they drew on certain traditions of hatred.
December 22nd, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Again, Jerry, I believe you’re making a false distinction between religion and the religious. Religion is a human construct, it is an outgrowth of our thoughts. People influence religion, and religion influences people. We can never know for sure what truly motivated the thugs who perpetrated the NYC attacks, but their actions did not occur in a vacuum.
Let me try to come at this from another angle: many religious organizations are always quick to take credit for the good done by their adherents but equally quick to duck the blame for hatred and violence inspired by their faith. This is despite the fact that the justifications for hatefulness are codified in their scriptures alongside the exhortations to love one another.
To put it more simply: it is unfair to claim that religion is solely good or solely bad. It can be a positive or negative influence, or something in between. Religion is a complex interplay between religious scriptures, socioeconomic forces, and individuals. To separate out the individual from religion is to imply that one exists without the other, and that is untrue.
December 22nd, 2007 at 7:16 pm
No, Bill. I see your point and I understand what you’re trying to say. I just don’t agree with you 100% on it.
Religion, if you remove the idea of a supreme being from the equation, can be argued to be a 100% creation of mankind. Fine; so is Freedom. I would not blame freedom or seek to condemn freedom because some of its practitioners act either irresponsibility or downright dangerously. A gun (and the gun culture that permeates the American sub-culture in a number of regions) is 100% a manmade construct. I own a number of firearms and I am definitely a part of the gun culture. When some hair brained idiot walks into a mall, a church, a restaurant or a school and opens fire on a crowd, I don’t question my gun ownership or seek remove guns from the hands of all. I question the nature of the human animal that could do something like that.
Bill: ”… many religious organizations are always quick to take credit for the good done by their adherents but equally quick to duck the blame for hatred and violence inspired by their faith.”
Oh, I agree with some of that. I worked with a young lady who went to a church where their Sunday school taught the kids that your conscience, that wonderful little voice telling you to do the right thing, was actually God speaking to you. You could do what God told you to do or you could ignore God’s directive and choose to sin. After being stuck in a room with her for four hours of this, I told her that I thought that the idea was kinda dumb. The entire world view espoused by her church elders was the idea that you could choose to sin or you could do what God told you to do. That was it. You couldn’t choose the right thing to do on your own; it was always God’s voice telling you the right thing to do. All good came from God and mankind’s only actions were to obey God’s directives or choosing to sin. Mankind could never be credited with choosing to do the right thing themselves because man’s choices were obey or sin.
I was actually being pretty nice by telling her that I thought that idea was kinda dumb. I actually found it F’N stupid as hell. But I do see lots of people out there with her mindset and I see lots of churches out there that expand that mindset to everything. Everything good has help from the hand of God and anything bad is either not talked about or is described as divine judgment. But you know what? I know a whole lot of devoted church goers who think people like that are thick in the head.
I have a lot of friends who are deeply religious, church going Christians who never push it on others or preach it where it’s not welcome. If you’re doing something that they don’t believe is morally or spiritually proper by their church teaching, that’s going to be between you and God later down the road. Their faith is their faith and they feel no need to ram it down others throats. There are lots of people out there like that. They just don’t make the news or stick out in a crowd because they’re not constantly showing their asses to the world.
Take religion out of it for a moment. I know a couple of guys, really great, liberally minded guys, who were brought up in Klan households. Both of these guys had parents in the KKK. They can’t even begin to understand their own parents’ (and for one, his sister’s) hatred of non-whites and non-Christians. On the flip side, I’ve grown up with a lot of guys who had very open minded and tolerant parents yet still grew up to be bigoted idiots themselves. In each case, it wasn’t what they were brought up being taught, where they grew up or how they grew up in general terms as much as it was who they were.
How about patriotism? I’ll certainly raise Ian to love his country and what it stands for, but my idea, and thus my teachings, of patriotism do not include the small minded, jingoistic attitudes of some that I’ve encountered. And I’ve met more then a few people who use “patriotism” as an excuse to justify hatred, prejudice and violence. Would you condemn the teachings and ideas of patriotism or would you choose to recognize these people’s defect as of their own making and ignorance?
I’m religious even if I no longer fit under any denomination. I walked away from the organized church for numerous other reasons, but even so, I find it difficult to blame a religion, a, as you described it, tool, for the actions of the holder of that tool. I use my hammer around the house to fix things and do pet projects. It’s not the hammer’s fault if the guy down the street from me runs out his front door and starts to wail away with his hammer on a group of people out for their morning walk.
It ain’t the tool; it’s the person holding it.
”To put it more simply: it is unfair to claim that religion is solely good or solely bad.”
That’s quite true. And I ultimately see it as neither. It is what the individual makes it. The individual can make it beautiful or the individual can make it repulsively ugly. But it is, more often then not, the actions of the individuals that either elevates or taints what we see of almost any religion. You can even say that about the more… questionable… religions. I’m loath to call Scientology a religion, but let’s just pretend that it is for a minute. If I yell “Scientology” in a crowded theater, almost everyone there will think, “It’s that nutty Tom Cruise parking his U.F.O. in the lobby again.” Not many people are likely to think of people like John Travolta, Kirstie Alley or Jason Lee. Why? Well, it might have something to do with them not using their faith to make asses of themselves on TV and in the press at every opportunity. Had Scientology had a few less members like Tom Cruise, it might not be as big of a joke to many as it is now.
”To separate out the individual from religion is to imply that one exists without the other, and that is untrue.”
But what if the individuals haxe already separated themselves from the religion? I’ve never read a bible that said that the mark of Kane was black skin. I’ve seen “Christian” bigots claim that for their justification of hating blacks and claiming that blacks are, because of their bloodline, genetically criminally disposed. I’ve certainly never read a Bible passage setting the date for the crucifixion of Jesus on Chanukah or stating that the Jewish people celebrated this deed on Chanukah. Near as I can tell, those were completely non-church sanctioned add-ons to theses guys’ belief system.
Did they, if they even bother with going to church or owning a Bible, learn that in church? Hell, lets say that, yes, they did indeed find a church in New York that taught these “facts” every Sunday morning. Since these “facts” are easily disproved by the information and teachings that abundantly available everywhere else, including in other churches, there’s a justifiable argument to be made that these twits wanted to hate and chose their minority held “facts” despite the far more available facts that contradicted their’s. Had they not been able to obtain their “justification” through the excuse of religion, then they would have gotten it elsewhere.
Micha: ”Yes, but they drew on certain traditions of hatred.”
And had they not drawn on the religious traditions, there are more then enough traditions that mankind has creates as an excuse to hate the other that these clowns could have found and used. And they most likely would have as well.
December 24th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
Patriotism and freedom are abstract concepts, religion is a comlex social institution.
Jerry, I think you are neglecing the role of society (and social instituions like religion) in shaping the ideas of individuals. I’m not saying that individuals are slaves to sociatal forces , but the individuals are not alone. For centuries racist and antisemtic ideas, including the ide that the Jews were collectively guilty of killing Christs were accepted by most Chritians, promoted by Christian clerics and justified by accepted interpretation of scripture. Recently this view Was rejected by most if not all Christians. We can’t simply say that the majority of individual Christians were bad people in the past and now most of them are good. Society changed, Christianity changed (my religion has shown less willingness to change). I’m not saying that individualsd not matter. The change was started by individuals, embraced by individuls, and apprently stil rejected by some. But you have to take into account society too.
“Did they, if they even bother with going to church or owning a Bible, learn that in church? Hell, lets say that, yes, they did indeed find a church in New York that taught these “facts” every Sunday morning. Since these “facts” are easily disproved by the information and teachings that abundantly available everywhere else, including in other churches, there’s a justifiable argument to be made that these twits wanted to hate and chose their minority held “facts” despite the far more available facts that contradicted their’s. ”
People usually tend t have loyalty to certain ideological teachings despite the availability of other ideologies. What causes people to prefer one ideology over another is a hard question. But it isn’t as if people shop around and find just the ideology that fits with some basic pre-ideological personality. Personality is shaped by many forces. It’s a chicken an egg kind of thing.
“But what if the individuals haxe already separated themselves from the religion? I’ve never read a bible that said that the mark of Kane was black skin.”
Scripture contains statements that might justify racism and anisemtism. They probably reflect he racism and antisemtism of the pople who wrote the texts. But the decisionto highlight these segments or other reflects the circumstances of different societies at a given moment. Obviously Christian slave owning societies sought justification in scripture for their social institutions.
In Genesis there is a reference to the Children of Ham (spl?) being slaves to oher natios in punishment for Ham’s crime. Ham’s children include africans. It seems safe to assume that this story was put in to justify certain attitudes or policies toward the nations associated with Ham.
I think the scriptural jusification of the Jews killing Jesus is when Pilate says “I wash my hands of this blood, it is on you and your decendants” (or something t that effect). Early Christians certainly had reasons to prtray Jews negatively, just as arly protestants had a reason to badmouth catholics. I think future generations built and epanded on that early hostility, adding to it new layers and details. I suspect the thugs came up with the Hanuka part on their own, or maybe heard it from someone. But that’s how traditions are built — somebody who has autority says one thing , and then somebody adds something else.
“And had they not drawn on the religious traditions, there are more then enough traditions that mankind has creates as an excuse to hate the other that these clowns could have found and used. And they most likely would have as well.”
I don’t thin these guys went around looking for the tradition that will justify their antisemitism. The grew in a place where that tradition still was accepted and it combind with other aspects of their prsonality, like being hugs, so that they focused their bully personality on /Jews at that day. It’s possible that another person who received the sameupbringing might share their beliefs but is als less inclined to be a tug, while a third might have something inhis personality that might cause him to reject anti-semiticism despite the ay he was brought up.
December 25th, 2007 at 5:27 am
What Micha said.
December 25th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
I think we’re at the agree to disagree stage for reasons that I’ll get into in the next few days. It’s short, I promise.
I just swung in to say Merry Christmas to everyone here. Hope the holiday is treating you well and you’re enjoying the day with your friends and family.
Cheers.
December 25th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Merry Christmas
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“The entire world view espoused by her church elders was the idea that you could choose to sin or you could do what God told you to do. That was it. You couldn’t choose the right thing to do on your own; it was always God’s voice telling you the right thing to do. All good came from God and mankind’s only actions were to obey God’s directives or choosing to sin. Mankind could never be credited with choosing to do the right thing themselves because man’s choices were obey or sin.”
WhenI was not finishingmy thesis I readthe letters of Bernard of Clarvaux, who was an abbot. He wrote letters to nobles who decided to become monks. He always said that they don’t deserve the credit — god does. But it was obvious he was actually flattering them. It’s a little like that guy I argued with at PAD’s . Some people need to have God ruber stamp what they do and their life in general for it to have any real value. Itall amounts o the same thing really. It’s kind of vane.