Religion is a balm to those that believe. A caring person will respect that and offer kindness and support.
To others religion does not offer comfort. A caring person will respect that and offer kindness and support.
Kindness, understanding and support.
73
I'm an atheist because I feel I have no other choice if I am to be intellectually honest. I do envy the community that religion provides. But I see no evidence for any gods, and logic dictates against them (who/what created these gods?) and their claimed superpowers. I'm not going to lie to myself, most of all. So while it may be more difficult, in some ways, I will pay the price and get by without believing in fictions. I will grieve because losing someone hurts and is a brutal reminder that my days here are also limited, and not try to escape that grief by pretending the dead go to magic place. They are just dead. Bury me in a field and let my body sink into the Earth.
52
Sure, gotcha. Personally, though not a believer, I agree with everything you say about the virtues of religion for the individual. Comfort, emotional support, social coherence. Great.
But here's the thing: keep it at that level. Don't beat the rest of us with your piety. Keep it out of government. Don't make us go to war for your or their beliefs. Do as you like, but don't insist on everyone else doing what you want us to do. Etc.
Wilson knows you can't do those things and that's why he correctly says, the best thing - in toto, net benefit - would be if it went away.
Of course it won't go away. We are primitive and emotional, and religion feeds that. And that's why we're doomed.
82
I have been an atheist or agnostic (I flipped back and forth several times in the last sixty years) at the age of thirteen. It eludes me how a person can find solace in times of extreme grief or challenging situations in a fairy story. I wasn't born with that but of mental wiring that makes people seek spirituality. That said, I firmly believe that those who believe in such things should be left alone to practice their rituals and communicate with their gods or goddesses. Both Europe and North America have seen a sharp decline in believers in the last quarter century partially because of the shortcomings, cruelty and corruption in religious organizations, and partially because those parts of the earth have a better educated population. Empathy for my fellow humans going through trials of life does seem to be built in to our minds and all but the sociopaths can relate to having the same horrors that can be visited on all if us randomly. I don't wish for people to suffer and most organized religion seems to be built on suffering and fear. I sincerely hope the human race can grow out of religion before one sect or another obtains and uses nuclear weapons on their apostate neighbors.
26
Surely the author isn’t not mistaken in his claim that religion serves an illusory but effective purpose. So too do placebos, tools for which we have no explanation and whose benefits are unassailable. But we do not place our trust in placebos, do we? We place our trust in science.
This isn’t apples versus oranges. Cultism and religious zealotry have wrought unimaginable pain and suffering on humanity, and are largely responsible for the systems of power and privilege that continue to weave the fabric of our world. Make no mistake- it is science that’s is dragging us out of the violent quagmire of ignorance and humankind’s worst inclinations- not religion.
Scientific inquiry gave us the understanding of the brain’s hierarchy that the author notes, from reptile to rational- why continue to condone settling in the limbic when we could be revelling in the neocortex? It’s downright diminutive.
45
Religion, created in tribal context, is a thought form of man with boundaries and definition. It's ideals re-tie (re-ligo) one to the highest (rewarded) aspirations of that tribe. The Divine, like dark matter, is limitless. Herein lies the rub. For as long as there are tribes, there will be an, "us" vs, "them". Or those that are rewarded vs those who aren't. When we can harness the force of dualism for power and control, there will be corruption. Religions have well-deserved the reputation.
14
Meh. I would take issue with much of what you say, beginning with your first sentence; are you categorizing atheists and intellectuals together? I’ve known many devout intellectuals and I’ve known many atheists who were fools.
But to the point. All religions deal basically with four questions: 1. Where did we come from? 2. What is the nature of the spirit / life force / consciousness? 3. What is morally correct behavior? and 4. What happens to us after we die? “Science” doesn’t answer these questions, and never can. But the human brain is programmed to seek answers to these questions. I wonder why.
44
I have a new perfume for sale. No matter how deep your despair in life, no matter how painful your suffering, no matter how hopeless the tragedy that has befallen you might seem, one whiff of my perfume will provide you with solace. It will ease all your burdens. The price tag for this perfume is rather high -- a third of your income, half of your assets, your freedom of thought, your submission to my domination -- but payment can be spread over the course of your lifetime. My perfume is named 'Religion.'
This perfume is really a great bargain. Ask yourself: how much is solace worth? A moment of solace is worth everything you have, right? What? You don't believe that my perfume can really deliver all that I promise? You gotta have faith!
25
Science is an evidence-based approach to understanding our world. Religion is a bunch of made up fairy tales designed to coerce and control people under the guise of a soothing balm applied once you die.
They aren’t two sides of the same coin. They are completely different currencies.
37
If religion had value it would be obvious, it is not.
14
“No amount of scientific explanation or sociopolitical theorizing is going to console the mother of the stabbed boy.”
So the response should be lying, which is always the religious playbook. Lies are fine when they’re nice lies, right? No, they are not. Falsehoods lead to poor decision making. You cannot separate the lies about bodily resurrection from the lies about killing the nonbelievers.
The fact that death is horrible does not mean we should take refuge in lies. Lies only empower the liars, and buying into lies disarms one from disagreeing when lies get bigger, as the inevitability do.
28
Maybe humans need better religions, the old ones are junk.
Perhaps the holy church of the Hubble Space telescope? Or maybe the All Seeing Shrine of the LSD tab? Or perhaps the Temple of the Dog?
Anything would be better than the old timey rubbish people practice on this sub Kardachev 1.0 berg.
11
Soul-less (according to human religion) mammal mothers, including chimps and elephants, experience grief at the death of loved one. What's the author's point?
17
Professor Asma believes in science as the arbiter of truth- even though, as Noam Chomsky has observed, science has very little to say about the ordinary problems of everyday life. For example, why is he looking at me like that; how do I get to the downtown area; what’s your friend's name; who’s the best dentist in town; what am I going to do with my life; is that a good restaurant; is he a good doctor; is your father home yet; who should I vote for etc etc etc
On the other hand, Professor Asma's faith in science no doubt produces oxytocin, internal opioids, dopamine and other positive affects that can help with coping and surviving so I think he should stick with it.
13
By blaming war almost completely on religion, atheist comments tend to suggest that a world without religion would be a world without war.
However, if we are going to be scientific, then let's look at the facts. In the last century, Stalin, Mao, and many other communist dictators, all atheists, caused untold misery and destruction. Ditto for the atheist National Socialist German Workers' Party. True, there can be religious influences in any war, but are they the primary motivator in today's world?
Consider America's wars since the end of WWII. Or take all US wars. How many were caused primarily by religion? Is religion driving our tensions with China? Russia? North Korea?
Sure, religious thinking involves a lot of magical thinking. It just doesn't have a monopoly on it.
33
Articles like this should be more responsible in categorizing religion. The article and the comments may apply to the Abrahamic religions. They do NOT apply to Hindu and Buddhist beliefs.
The US is not wholly made up of Christians, Jews and Muslims. It has a growing population of immigrants from Asia, who are Hindu, Sikh, Jain and Buddhists of several types, not to mention those people who have converted to the Asian religions mentioned.
The New York Times should not permit "Religion" to be the category of all types of religions, because it is not the truth. The world views and theocracy of the Asian-origin religions is much different because the understanding of God is different and includes belief in reincarnation.
21
The issue here is not some sort of anecdotal (or even objective) evidence of the soothing possibilities of religious belief. If that's what someone needs to carry them through life, fine, by all means! What IS the issue is the centrality given to organized religion throughout US society. The tax breaks, the judicial deference, the invocation of religious pieties after catastrophic events instead of tangible solutions... these are the things that have to go.
18
I'm sticking to Pascale's wager. I have nothing to lose if I chose to belief and it turns out there is no God; I have everything to gain if I believe and there is a God.
I truly believe we were a "nicer" people when most people were believers. Our children were kinder. We were kinder! We were far less "it's all about me". We have lost so much by choosing to not believe.
There are bad parts of just about everything in life. Science is far from untouched by this - just look at all the faked research that has come to light in the past few years. So, should we reject all science? Of course not! And just because there are extremist in just about everything, that is no reason to reject all religion. It does offer hope and comfort. And today those are two things nearly everyone can use more of in life.
38
While I appreciate the writer’s perspective that religious beliefs can be emotionally therapeutic, with all due respect I disagree that it therefore has a legitimate long-term useful place in the world order. The problem is that organized religion (be it christian, muslim, or whatever) can be hepful in definng moral behavior, it can also be a tool for intolerance and destructive behavior in the hands of the uneducated or unscrupulous. In the end, it is a close debate whether the Catholic Church (e.g.) has been a net constructive or destructive force during its existence.
9
Religion's magical thinking makes it possible, no probable, that science will be often be negated for bigotry and polemics. Like the baker's case before the SC. It's a form of thinking that derides certain people based on generations of exclusion and disregard, like gays, and gives those who do a society-sanctioned reason to do so. There is no law that says one has to be smart or fair, but I see no reason to give soft bigotry a leg up by endorsing religion.
10
Religion is inherently damaging to the individual because it makes that individual cede control of his/her everyday life as well as find a comforting ritual for grieving or handling disaster. It is investing in mythology and untruths as interpreted by a power broker in the form of priest, pastor, rabbi, imam, etc. It makes people vulnerable to being abused and conned. It gives the powerful control of the less powerful and invades all aspects of life but and makes people reject factual information. You can soothe yourself with your pick and choose reference to religion not being bad but it is not the truth. It's not just a one trick pony but a whole herd of ponies with tricks.
11
Believing in Santa Claus makes kids happy at Christmas. That doesn't mean it's real. And to someone like me who is not a believer, there is obviously nothing about religion that will offer "comfort" to me in hard times. Opiate for the masses still says it.
16
I disagree strongly with Professor Asma's conclusions. When we give the grieving mother solace about a caring and loving god, we also excuse god for all the terrible world events; The babies who die, the cancer victims, the football coach who prays for his team to win, the TV evangelist who reaps millions of dollars from poor people for prayer, the terrorist who shouts the name of god as he blows up 50 innocent bystanders.
Religion keeps billions of people on this planet subservient and ignorant. Religion is a world-wide process of mind-control by the powerful on the most helpless. It's a money game, a divider, and man's greatest weakness.
21
I like to think of myself as a cosmic agnostic and an earthly atheist. In any situation, I'd rather deal with an unhappy truth than a comforting lie.
11
What is valuable is the spirituality and community that can give a life a purpose and give us the social connections we so badly need. Those can be found in religion and they can also be found elsewhere.
The "magical thinking" as you call it I guess offer some solace to the inconsolable at an individual level and you point out it is no more dangerous than using alcohol, but then again don't people get help when they are using alcohol to numb their reality.
The problem is that magical thinking that most religion is founded on is quickly abused by some for purposes of greed and power. I am all for everyone finding that spiritual path that helps sustain them through life's difficult journey. And I have met many religious leaders who are truly inspirational and believe in interfaith support, as in my religion isn't better than yours and we are in this together trying to find our paths. That I can support.
Unfortunately though that is often not the case, I have had friends tell my children they were going to hell if they didn't believe in God, and of course we see racism, hatred, murder, and environmental abuses all perpetrated in the name of religion often even by leaders.
We all need comfort in our time of need, and religion in some forms may provide that, but often is just adds to the human judgement and suffering in this world.
8
Your editorial mixes apples and oranges. I think your point is that religion can give us comfort and secular scientific truth sometimes cannot. The purpose of secular scientific truth is not to provide comfort, it may or may not, scientific truth is an end in itself. (n.b. Sometimes scientific secular truth can provide comfort; for example, consider some medical diagnoses and cure that addresses your discomfort, or genetically engineered plants that prevent famine. ) But sometimes scientific secular truth is uncomfortable or cannot address your problem and then, if comfort is the goal, it is always possible to concoct some religious story that will make the mother or family more hopeful and comfortable. Good people may delude themselves with comfortable stories, but you and I know that what they have resorted to is magical and irrational. For those of us able to handle scientific truth do you recommend we pursue comfort via irrational religious stories and beliefs or should we pursue secular scientific truth? Is your function as a teacher to provide comfort or truth?
4
I grew up in the Congregational Church and in Buddhism. My family included Catholics and Mormons, so I was exposed to other religions. I am Buddhist now. Along with providing comfort, religion provides a way of understanding the World and phenomena that cannot easily be explained by science. That, I guess, is comforting. I guess the need to know and understand is part of the human condition as well as a belief that we might be able to control certain things outside of our personal space. The idea that we all need some kind of delusion to get through life is very pessimistic. It's not delusion we seek, it's a way of understanding that supports our belief system. I for one would rather understand the World as it is, accept the things that are good and reject the things that are delusional.
11
I'm not sure, but wasn't it Aquinas who showed that God exists in the periphery of science? And that there is always a periphery? Always. Like Godel, with his theory of the "incompleteness" of any system. I guess I prefer Einstein's take on the whole thing the most, "God is in the details". Smart man that one!
No matter, there is always room for God somewhere. All you have to do it believe in him. Or her. Or it. Thank God for that!
I've always thought that those who disparage a belief in God, as being rather unaware or dismissive, willfully or not, of the solace it can bring to so many suffering people in the world. Whether or not you personally have faith, why deny the comfort it brings to so many?
I mean, it's not like it's "phantom comfort" or something or other. For believers it's quite real. And, to me, that's all that really matters.
13
Professor Asma paints a broad brush in the article. For some, Jesus of 2018 is unrecognizable, compared to the Jesus of the post WWII America. Back then Jesus was about “Love”. Today as the South has risen again, Jesus is about Judgement. Back then, Christian kids were taught about turning the other cheek, a very tough concept to learn. Today, Jesus is about a fist in the other’s face. Kids today can push scan on the car radio and come up with a several stations concerned about “coming to Jesus” & nothing about kindness for their fellow man.
Ironically, the right wing Christians demonstrate how not to behave. No wonder young adults are tuning it out. They don’t know what’s right. But they know what’s not.
5
What religion gives us that science cannot? Ignorance, bigotry, poverty, authoritarianism and boring sex. Gee, what's not to love?
9
It's a great idea to define religion as a medicine. I 'believe' and have a good 'faith' on the FDA which has many good scientists who can take care of legitimate certificate procedure for religion as a medicine.
Wow, now patients can take FDA approved religion with less drawbacks and statistically proven effects.
Once again some hereabouts ask why God lets bad things happen to good people.
This life is just the start - a test, really.
Did you expect your parents to rush into the tough math test in high school just because you struggled with it?
God teaches us a LOT faster when we are going through our dark valleys of questioning. Believers know He's there and also know that the hard times never last longer than Heaven will.
6
Of course science cannot offer us what religion does. There is a profound misunderstanding of the nature of religion on all sides here. Also, we are all confusing our currently known religions with the basic human spiritual impulse, from which all spiritual practices arise, later to be codified into the dense, social organizations we call religions. Religion is our cultural definition of what kind of self we think we are and why are we here? Religion deals with the meaning of life.
And science, wary of the powerful social control mechanisms of the church, has said it will speak with authority only on what it can measure. One cannot measure the soul. Science's biggest mistake, directly affecting the current loss of cultural faith in science and logic, is to claim there is no soul. Science claims to know there is no meaning to your life.
Our current religions' definitions of the self are out of date. We, as a species, have simply outgrown them. It is not bad. Do you still try to wear the same size shoes you did when you were 7? The religions have become caricatures of what they once were, twisting Scripture this way and that to deal with modern exigencies.
We as beings cry out in wonder and awe. There will be new religions in time. They arise as naturally out of our soul as music and dance and art do. A portion of your psychology is immortal.
9
Thanks for your comment, it is appreciated.
1
Hate to be a troll here but...
No amount of religious moralization can prevent a mother grieving over an easily preventable (by science!) death.
Like vaccines over prayer or blood transfusions over faith healing.
Someday, when most (all?) of the secrets of our bodies are unlocked, perhaps there will be no more grieving at all but rather the calm acceptance of death after a long healthily lived life. And that’s not even counting some of the more extreme ideas out there (read Homo Deus).
Until then I guess we have to cling to our opium for the masses.
Disclaimer - As an investor/principal in a bioinformatics firm at cutting edge of A.I. and the human immuno-genome, I have high hopes that we will be able to substantially reduce a mother’s grief. Already we (the industry) have seen substantial progress in CURING age old diseases (FDA approved, for the first time, 4 gene therapies in the last year). What would you prefer?
Of course if you’re like the Jehovah’s Witness people you can refuse these treatments.
Breaking news: immuno genetic therapy completely eliminated stage 4 breast cancer from a woman. Hopefully this treatment will be fast tracked.
6
"The older reptilian brain, built by natural selection for solving survival challenges, was not built for rationality. Emotions like fear, love, rage — even hope or anticipation — were selected for because they helped early mammals flourish."
Please give me a non-teleological description of evolution.
3
Although science can give us the means to fight a war, religion gives us the reason to make war.
3
Or the US wanting cheap oil. War is often fought without religion, although religion may be used as an excuse.
5
The limited knowledge and the assumptions of many NYT writers/ commenters about the great variety of religious beliefs always surprises me. I don't believe in an afterlife, I am not expecting a Big Daddy in the Sky to take care of me. I find practicing my religion affords me a better way to live my life on Earth. Not easier, just better.
8
Thank you! That is how I practice, too. I am religious but don’t believe in an old man on a throne in the sky either! That assumption shows such a narrow understanding of faith.
4
I don't like believers telling atheists that they 'should' believe.
I also do not like atheists telling believers that they 'shouldn't' believe.
Both are kind of obnoxious.
It's possible to believe (and live) something deeply without imposing it on others.
Evangelicals and fundamentalists have given many reasonable people of deep faith a bad rap. But snide atheists can be just as annoying. There's a middle ground where most respectful people reside.
22
The split between dogmatic religion and spirituality is an important one, and is repeatedly address by Sam Harris in his work "The end of faith". There are few who would argue against the palliative power of religious belief; there are many who would argue (justifiably) about the numerous regressive and harmful characteristics of dogmatic religion on a large scale. Thanks for writing.
I take great comfort n imagining my departed ones dancing together to some music n the sky and sending us love and guidance from time to time.
I believe it and I don’t but I know it strengthens me to honor my ancestors by remembering them with a candle or other offering now and then and speaking to them as tho they can hear me. Especially thanking them... it opens me, leaves some room for mystery, and acknowledges that life is much bigger than us and we will never know it ‘all’.
10
As an anthropologist, I note that the author has, indeed explained why most (most all) human societies maintain an accepted belief in the supernatural realm as a locus of emotional connection (not that any society lacks a huge chunk of skeptics & non-believers). However, this entire essay could profitably be re-written, eliminating the word "religion"--and its supernatural realm--entirely, now focusing on the incredible healing effects of mental transformation (aspirin, alcohol, sweats, music, dancing, ritual behaviors, et al.) and socio-psychological connections (2 or more people engaged in touches, hugs, singing, dancing, wailing, keening, ritual behaviors, communal meals, etc.)
I contend it is not the supernatural that heals us, nor even a belief in the supernatural, but that incredibly powerful force we call "community," and that most contemporary people have no idea how to create or tap into.
6
I go to church FOR this community. I don’t know of any other organization that provides the kind of connection I get there. If that is “all it is”, it is enough. Can we call it Love or God that sustains this community? Would we stay together for 20 years if it was called something else?
3
The author is calling forth the metaphysical when one feels one will see a loved one in the afterlife, a time of higher consciousness. Through memory and rituals the loved one is kept alive to the living. There is also the understanding that as mortal creatures we are all in it together on some plane. Nature also soothes and offers mystery.
2
I guess I'm a "typical Atheist" scientist with a moral center. I have consoled many people over the years, including my own grandmother, a devout Christian. While it is consoling to point to god who will make you feel better, the act puts the grief outside oneself, and consolation in itself isn't necessarily bad, putting it outside oneself is what got us Trump - over 70% of Republican voters think his is moral. They can do it because their actions and it seems their own thoughts have been given to something outside themselves. Belief in god, while also not inherently bad, has too many negative side effects and allows someone to excuse any behavior they want. Either god let me do it, or god will forgive me. I then, disagree with another atheist, Tom from Texas - I take the long view.
1
I am a scientist but I have seen, and had experiences that cannot be explained. I have questions that can’t be answered yet by rational thought nor religion and probably never will.
I mostly fall into the category of seeing the brutishness of religion, the hypocrisy, the vast butchering of human beings and squelching of the human spirit in the name of religion.
There seems to be a great deal of fear and anger at the core of religions. Rationality can be included in religion but often isn’t, the best examples, of course, are the disbelief in evolution and the view that science is a pernicious attack against religious beliefs. So by the definitions provided in this article, religion is mostly a flood of neurochemicals from the limbic, some from reptilian regions but not much from the neocortex.
On the other hand, as so many others have in this thread, I have seen religion act as a balm in the face of great tragedy and sadness, faith able to provide healing, maybe with scars and never the same, but healing. I respect, and on a personal note, am glad about that aspect about religion. Here, it would seem that the limbic predominates, and I think, the neocortex may even play a small role as well.
But there a question that continues to haunt me: what was there before the Big Bang? The neocortex region provides no assistance, the reptilian and limbic regions are silent as well. I am left only with my imagination.
5
... before the Big Bang ...
Given that our own evolution, from its earliest point several billion years ago, has been within the context of "post Big Bang", when "time" has basically been an unchanging constant, it's no surprise our minds struggle with "pre Big Bang", when time as we know it did not exist. There is absolutely nothing in our physical evolution that should enable us to begin to grasp the pre-time infinitesimal universe.
5
GR,
Thank you for your very sincere and thoughtful response. You sum up how I, and probably many other readers feel. I just feel compelled to follow up with one thing. The big question of what came before the Big Bang is essentially the same as asking what came before the Creator/s of our Universe. Considering a creator hosts adds one more unknown to the problem. Very interesting to think about nonetheless.
4
Religion is a powerful tool that can be used to benefit people, such as the case involving the writer's student. Religion has also been used as an 'excuse' for people to do inhumane, horrible things to others - religious wars, oppression and abuse of women, for example.
Perhaps instead of referring to 'religion', the term 'spirituality' or 'philosophy' might be more encompassing, in terms of how an individual's beliefs can bring that person emotional relief or salvation from an otherwise unbearable, survivable emotional trauma.
My parents' mix of progressive Lutheran Christian beliefs, mixed with Chinese philosophical beliefs helped each of them to survive my father's very slow, painful death from prostate cancer (a cancer that was supposed to grow so slowly that he'd die of old age before the cancer killed him, or so his doctors said).
My father's belief that upon death, we are all reunited with our loved ones, provided some comfort to him as he continued to decline day in and day out, over a two year time period.
My mother's belief that some day she would be reunited with my father, upon her death, and that my father would be 'with God' also brought her some comfort during the endless nights of providing care for my father, as well as the time after his death.
My parents' experience is an example of how religious and philosophical beliefs can be used in a positive manner. It's not for everyone, but, for my parents, it was a God-send.
4
The flourishing discussion on this comment board is great! Really encouraging! I love it.
There are still countries in this world where, to express even the slightest doubt about the local religious orthodoxy is to bring a death penalty down on oneself.
7
The consolation of philosophy is not unlike the consolation of religion both are a way of understanding the world in which we all live. Likewise, scientism -- the scientific method -- is a way of understanding the world. Its "belief" or "faith" in either of these ways of understanding the world that is important to consolation.
The extent to which any belief assuages one's emotional grief depends on the strength of one's belief in the concepts.
2
As a philosophe, Dr. A, I would think you would see the incoherence in your positing a choice between religion and science, as if there are only those two choices when it comes to dealing with grief.
How ironic? What about Philosophy? Mindfulness which is a practical philosophy, while technically originates in religion, is not exactly religion, certainly not in the sense of belief in the supernatural, or diety. And then there is humanism, as well. There are lots of ways of dealing with tragedy and grief without resorting to belief in the supernatural...Religion offers a valuable emotional medicine, for sure, but at what price? There are drugs that work well and also kill you in the end. Not sure at age 63 if religion is any different. When our nation experienced the tragedy of Don Trump's election, I felt an enormous loss, but was not able to go to church or synagogue. Instead I made food and gave it, along with small amounts of money and clothing, and gave it to the poor, just as I did in Sri Lanka when my father died. Giving to others is a nice medicine for treating grief; it gets you out of yourself, while not denying the grief. Finally, mindfulness practice gives you a safe internal space in which to feel all of your emotions in real time. It starts with mindfulness of the in and out breath. Pretty simple actually. Yes, its harder being an atheist; but it does not mean you can't be religious in all the most serious ways.
4
So define "religion."
Scientists have beliefs too. Like that the universe follows laws, and that we can find good approximations to those laws. There is no way to prove or disprove this belief, as Kant pointed out long ago. Find something that doesn't follow laws, and then you can say "Aha! The scientists' belief is false," or you can say, "Well, we just haven't found the law here yet."
Christianity is just one religion (in which there are many sub-religions that differ widely). Islam and Judaism are pure monotheisms; Christianity with its Trinity perhaps is monotheistic or perhaps not (depends on whom you ask); Hinduism has multiple gods; Buddhism seems not to worship a deity. One can argue about whether Confucianism or Taoism are "religions" in the sense that followers of the Abrahamic faiths use the term. Or whether the scientists' belief in an orderly universe is one.
Human beings consoling one another in times of crisis or grief can occur within groups called religious or in secular settings. We all need comfort, we all need forgiveness. There's a lot about the universe and about humanity that we don't know, and some humility would become us all. At a minimum: don't, whether it's science or religion, use the source of your consolation to hurt other people.
12
This piece clearly make the case for religion to be a deeply personal experience shared with like minded people participating willingly. When it leaves that symbiosis to engage the unwilling, that's the time religion become tough to defend.
5
One anecote deserves another. My grandparents were devout, faithful churchgoers and Bible readers all their lives. When I was a child of six, my grandmother told me that my book about horses should have all the pages that talked about the evolution of the horse marked out with a big black X because it was not true: God had made horses just as they are today. (I am not sure if I was more shocked by the allegation that a book could lie or the idea of drawing in a book.) After many decades of a loving marriage, my grandfather died of a stroke. The casket at the funeral was open. When they closed that lid for the last time, my poor grandmother sobbed aloud: "Now I'll never see him again!" So much for all those years and Christian promises of meeting again in the hereafter - when she needed it most, they failed her. Regardless of the many millions of individuals religious belief may have comforted, it's still one of the greatest forces for evil, intolerance, violence and hatred in the world. Not for me, thanks.
14
"I do want to argue that its irrationality does not render religion unacceptable, valueless or cowardly," Well, Mr Asma, unless you argue this or not, this is exactly what religion is and you could have ended your piece with this lucid statement, taking out the "not," but rather you decided to descend into wackadoodle arguments supporting irrational belief systems. Your anecdotal story in this piece is touching, but irrelevant and misses the forrest for trees. The oppression, despair and suffering caused by otherwise good people doing awful acts can be directly tied to state sponsored religion in almost every corner of the world. In the United States this is manifested in many ways, but most notably by the tax exempt status given to churches and religious organization, forcing all of us (believers or not) to subsidize the hobbies of others, including the abuse and mind control that comes with every single religion ever invented...
6
Interesting article, but the author shortchanges the benefits of science in this respect. What does science say about the effectiveness of consolation measures? That is the relevant comparison. Science sould recommend the griever think about the life of the deceased and how that person's life will be remembered by the people the deceased has interacted with. That is how the deceased will live on. That is how the griever can carry on the life of the deceased.
5
Dr. Asma's bemusement has led him to the lofty decision that some of us should be allowed our religious beliefs. He has granted believers a place in his own consciousness wherein we can reside benignly.
He has come to the conclusion that condemnation of all religious belief is wrong. Glory Be!
I find that along with the comfort faith can bring, much of religious belief brings arduous effort. And the ultimate effort is that of forgiveness, the giving of it and asking for. I forgive Dr. Asma for his condescension, and I ask forgiveness for my own.
It's humility -the willingness to place oneself not at the center of one's universe, not as the most important or powerful force - whether singularly or as one of MANKIND.
I wish those who believe in the absence of a God - the absence of a higher power, could understand that they, too, have a religion. It's the belief in the power of SCIENCE - a process created by HUMANS. And, ironically, it leads many to believe in a GAIA-esque religion...of the universe, of the earth.
Religious belief isn't an emotion, nor is it a singular explanation. It's faith that we are not the creator ourselves. It's faith in the unknowable. It's faith in the certainty that we are all here because we have been created by a force other than our own will.
7
Religion: A belief system that allows you to kill other people and feel it was the right thing to do.
12
Single largest mental health threat facing the plant today is Abrahamic religion.
11
The truth helps people. There is no god.
11
As that has never been proven scientifically, you're free to believe that there isn't ... or that there is.
4
The author is confusing the "comfort" that some religions may offer to a comfort that the 3 Abramaic religioins do not. None of these religious claim that the dead are sure to go to everlasting bliss in heaven. They all claim that the dead may wind up in everlasting Hell Fire though.
5
I don't know about Christianity and Islam, but you're certainly wrong about Judaism. In Judaism there is the belief that the soul of the departed rises, and that the good deeds of the children help that soul rise ever higher.
As a creation of the human mind, religion can “give” us nothng.
“Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man that the Tin Man didn’t already have”.
6
Poop in one hand and pray in the other. See which hand fills up.
2
I understand your argument about religion providing emotional solace. I have seen this in action when my aunt passed away ahead of my grandmother. Religion helped her deal with her daughter’s untimely death. And true, religion creates a social community with familiar, reassuring rituals that may help with the challenges of life.
To me however, these benefits are not exclusive to religion, and a sense of social well-being, community, and support can be created around many other aspects of our lives with a strong sense of belonging and a sense of wonder without religion. For instance, people support each other when dealing with addiction or rally around a cause, or simply gather around a passion.
Conversely, religion is too often used for manipulation since fundamentally religious authority cannot be questioned. Religious authorities claim to speak in the name of God. That is convenient to manipulate the mind, decide what is right and wrong, and impose one’s own view of the world.
Moreover, religion is too often used as an excuse for discrimination. Pretty much all religions are exclusive. It’s the believers vs. the non-believers, the righteous vs. the lost, the chosen ones vs. the damned. It is with that frame of mind that religious folks, like the owners of Masterpiece Bakery in Colorado, justify excluding their gay customers. They call it religious freedom, but religious freedom is just a better sounding name for discrimination and exclusion.
4
Religion gives us legions of very dull people who imagine themselves the intellectual equals of an entity that purportedly knows everything. It is really a backward way of looking at the world.
5
The idea of some imaginary afterlife in which all Christians will be reunited doesn't console me after the death of my beloved 97-year-old grandmother.
2
Me either, but I go to church regularly. It helps me to love my grandmother with a fierce gratefulness while she is here. Not that I did not already learn that from my parents (who did not go to church), but it regularly reminds me, inspires me to love fully, be present, so when she does die, we can be at peace.
1
Actually, you don't need religion to console anyone. You just need compassion and sympathy. I've known many theists and atheists who are both compassionate and sympathetic. Sadly, I've also known both theists and atheists who aren't.
It's about compassion, not belief. And having a belief system doesn't make one automatically compassionate or better. It's the individual, not the system.
6
It's not that Science can't, it's that Science won't. Science will not offer answers until those answers are supported by some verifiable proof. It may comfort the grieving mother to think that she will someday be reunited with her slain son in Heaven, but there is no proof that that has EVER happened to anyone, or ever will happen.
If that belief comforts the mother, I won't argue with her. But belief is not knowledge. It's just a story.
5
I'm an atheist, but each time one of my beloved pets died, I was temporarily soothed by the "'magical thinking" idea that they went to pet heaven. It felt good so I went with it!
4
As an atheist I would never try to convince this mother that there was no afterlife. However, the most important harm that religion does is to convince people of comforting untruths, and at the time of a crisis, it is not the right time for theological debates about the reality of an afterlife. Many are convinced that some people need these comforting myths but I disagree. It is only those who have been indoctrinated to believe in the untruths of religion that are in the predicament where they need these comforting myths. If we begin to properly educate people from youth about the reality of life and death, we would all be better prepared to deal with both life and death. Comforting myths such as life after death cause more harm than good. Witness families praying and waiting for a miracle while their brain dead loved one decomposes in a hospital bed and similar scenarios. Witness people rejecting medical care because their faith tells them that trust in god and prayer is all that one needs. I do not think that lies, no matter how comforting, are solutions to grief. It may be too late for many to say otherwise, and so when crisis hits, those comforting myths may help some.
4
A person in the throws of an emotional response, to any event, is not functioning with a rational mind. To say that religious belief is a solution to grief and grieving is absurd. One must work towards a rational understanding of life's events. Yes, this is not easy and it does take a while but ultimately it is the clarity of rational thinking that resolves such issues.
4
If you are willing to comfort a victim using lies, there are many good nonreligious solutions. For example, you could tell the grieving mother that her son had survived and had gone into a witness protection program, and that she would see him in 10 years or so.
9
The sciences of sociology and psychology explained the political maneuvering and consolation of religion, over one hundred years ago. I, too, operating in the field of medicine, realized, over the last 45 years of practice, that some people need the fantasy. "The Greatest Story Ever Told" is just that. It is a story with adjustments for every infliction against mankind. And, I have allowed, even participated in, the patient's faith...only for them, and never as an acknowledgement of my reality. Their reality was the need for their story to continue, to make them feel as if they had not been wrong all their lives. Who am I to make them face another, and more accurate, reality? But, by allowing the religious story to continue and to interrupt the learning process of mankind, we are doing mankind no favor. We have already put off the learning of self by hundreds, if not thousands of years. We would do better, as a world, if we could provide a different heroic story, one that provides that "good ole fashioned" internal glow without denying all the sciences.
4
We live in a time where a many members of government believe in the End Times or The Day of Judgement. That if billions died in a nuclear conflict, people are actually alive in the hereafter and this may signal the return of a messianic figure. Religion is also barrier to women's rights, gay rights, stem cell research, acceptance for climate change/evolution, and others.
I would argue the analgesics of "get religion" after a personal tragedy isn't worth its profound civilizational threat. Religion isn't a substitute for professional therapy. In an age of nuclear weapons and suicide bombers, the question whether religion is true or not needs to be answered. The truth matters, and I'm going with atheism and anti-theism.
5
A lot of questionable assumptions from people dissing religion (which they equate with American, evangelical, fundamentalist Christianity and catholicism) as the source of all our troubles. They are assuming if you just forget everything about religion, you become blank slates infused with "natural" Enlightenment values. In fact, we are still coasting on fundamental assumptions from Christian moral values like the value of the individual and human life.
For one thing, they forget to ask what life was like before Christianity. Like in the Roman Empire. It was not great for women, or slaves, or the lower classes. The idea that every human, male or female, rich or slave, had a right to human dignity, and compassion, because they had a soul, was alien to the Romans. The Romans respected strength and despised weakness. That is one of the things that was so attractive about Christianity, and it formed the basis for the development of what eventually became our concept of human rights.
Life was no better for women or the weak in other societies, like in Egypt, Asia, India or South America, and there was little hope of it becoming better without the intervention of western society introducing those modern concepts of democracy and human rights.
5
The view in this article is well taken. However religion has a powerful negative in offering structures that separate us into different “tribes,” which over the millennia have been the basis of excusing our kill the other instincts.
5
My father had broken away from his Orthodox Jewish upbringing when he was around 19, and never looked back. However, he didn't reject all aspects of religion. He told me a story once about two Jewish men talking about their daily prayers. One says: Well, I get up in the morning, I say my morning prayers, I get washed, I go to synagogue, attend services, and by 8AM I'm all set for the day. The other says: I wake up in the morning and say Thank you, God, then I think: who am I? and who are you? And I'm lost for the whole day! So the point is, it's really the question that matters. It's not "I do believe," or "I don't believe." In those statements there is no question. Zen has another way of putting the exact same thing. There is a koan that asks: Does a dog have Buddha nature? And I once read a quote from a master who said: "If I answer yes or no I lose my own Buddha nature." So please, whether you are a believer, or whether you do not believe, think about these things. Once we close ourselves off to the question.......
3
I'm with Stephen Hawking - there is no God. The universe could have spontaneously created itself! And I have never known a single mother or father who did well with losing a child because she/he believed in God.
7
And yet Hawking was on the faculty of the Pontifical Academy of Science. He liked a good conversation on the subject of religion. He was anything but dismissive.
1
I have been an atheist for most of my life. I may have been intolerant when I was younger, but today I have nothing against anyone having different beliefs than my own, especially since a philosophy class taught me neither can be proven. It is not the belief I object to, it's the religion that goes with it.
I was nice enough to open my home to a woman, a devout evangelical Christian. I actually wanted to ask her some questions about faith, but all she wanted to do was proselytize. It was when she claimed, without knowing my father's heritage, that all Jews were dirty and banned from heaven, that I realized exactly what I was dealing with, and remembered why it's been about 40 years since I've tried to have this conversation with anyone religious.
Of course having a scientist come talk to a grieving mother is not going to help. But what if she had been raised to believe merely that life is amazing, that we should strive to live a good/just life, and that we should confront death instead of hiding from it, as is common in this country. Would she still have needed religion for comfort, or might she have been better armed against such trauma?
5
What does religion have to do with believing in anything? How anyone can drink Pepsi over Coke is what’s really crazy to me. People just like to be different for differences sake. Thank God for free enterprise.
1
As John Lennon sang "whatever get you through the night, it's alright."
1
Not when it causes harm to others.
1
What we atheists have to urgently acknowledge is that there's NO scientific evidence AT ALL proving that there is no god.
Absent such an evidence, we all have to decide whether we'll integrate a notion of god into our lives or not, and no matter what we decide, it is necessarily and inevitably a leap of faith: either you decide that there is no god, or that there is one.
The mainstream attitude among atheist today that somehow religion would be "irrational", is totally irrational, as there's no scientific evidence at all backing up such an attitude/belief.
Any attempt to "save" religion that doesn't acknowledge this basic truth, is doomed to remain totally incoherent.
So if you believe that religions "irritate you rational brain", you should start questioning absurd assumptions like that, IF you want to behave rationally, rather than blindly accept them as dogmas, as Asma is doing here ...
2
"What Religion Gives Us (That Science Can’t)"
Skreek skreek skreek. Hark! What is that? Why, it's the sound of an exhausted straw man argument.
As though only religious worldviews can console, as though nonreligious worldviews - here denigrated as "science" - are all hyper-rationalist, actively attack religion, and have no resources of consolation.
Why oh WHY does the NYT serve up this old chestnut? To prove how tolerantly liberal it is in the face of right wing attacks that will denigrate it as liberal anyway?
In conclusion, blech.
4
There is deep and abiding solace in truth that cannot be found in delusion.
Science? Call it what you will. Asma would have you think Science is sterile. Asma writes silliness and nonsense.
Science - let's call it Truth - Truth will be your trusted companion forever.
Religion - let's call it Delusion - Delusion dies in a mirage before it reaches puberty.
3
never more true:
The full quote from Karl Marx translates as: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people".
Opium of the people - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_of_the_people
the problem is that opium leads to delusional thinking and action.
i always say that everyone has the right to their own religious beliefs as long as these beliefs do not affect, in a negative way, others. ah yes, it does; everyday. no liquior sales on sunday in states; no woman's right to choose; pray away illness without medical intervention; home schooling without learning the basics.....
and...that's the problem. delusional thinking and belief in the fictional work called the bible:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xVBldyy_Oo
What can religion give us that science can't? Ignorance, war, human sacrifice, self-mutilation, racism, genocide, beheading, burning at the stake, destruction of the planet, child rape ... I could go on.
5
Generally, religions proclaim what almost any speciman wants to believe, that there is a plan going on and its purpose and focused "me."
On the other end are those who know they are part of nature. We dont exist, then we do, then we dont again. Given a choice most take the "I am special" route.
If we do not start out with absurd beliefs, as we will never die, we can adapt and build purpose with humans instead of through the promises of a particular god. There is nothing wrong or scary about not existing. Eventually there will not be a trace of every person you love and your self. If you live everyday knowing that, the losses become part of living, not a trauma.
Ive met people who are devastated when their parents die. I tend to think they are a bit crazy.
3
You can live every second of your life knowing losses are a part of living and still you will feel the pain of losing someone dear, of having your heart bursting with love for that person and no way to offer it to them, no way to bring a smile to their lips.
1
Pig satisfied?
The problem is that as often as the irrationality is used to console, it is just as often used to damn and with consequences that are equal to or greater than the consolation.
How many families have turned away loved ones because their religion tells them to shun those who are gay? How about the irrationality that goes with attempts at getting rid of demons? How many women are kept out of positions of moral authority because their religions say, irrationally, that they are not suited for it- that God would not approve?
The thing is, one cannot limit the irrationality to only the agreeable circumstances. It has and will be used to justify atrocity.
Make claims to compassion. Towards treating people as fallible and with basic human dignity. Work towards a realization that life is short and making others suffer in that short life is to heap grief upon the living.
But don't be a pig satisfied. Humans are grander and can be better than that.
Further, as someone who does perfectly well with consolation without religion- don't demean me and my humanity for not believing in god claims. I can be moral without it. I can be a good person without it.
To claim otherwise makes you an irrational bigot.
2
If you have to weigh the good against bad when it comes to religion, it's not even close. The bad is overwhelming, and seems to be getting worse. The crux of the author's argument seems to be that if a delusion about an afterlife makes someone feel better, than that's fine. Why aren't we pursuing new methods to help people deal with tragic deaths in a different way, that isn't complete religious nonsense. Being a part of a community, and healing with the help of others seems to be more on the right track. I can't believe an ancient religion is still the best medicine in 2018. I think we can do better.
3
As usual, we have a religious adherent glibly skirting logic with sophistry. The argument seems to be that Bill Nye, Richard Dawkins, and Neil DeGrasse Tyson, as representative of atheists, would not be able to cope with the horrific death of a son. Conversely, of course, any religious person would survive a tragic loss. And this is what a professor of philosophy took from the student's recount of his student's tragedy? I'm always alarmed by the apparent dichotomy of a formally educated person who espouses religious belief.
3
You omitted from your list of "good reasons for this discontent", the most important one: lack of evidence confirming any theology whatsoever.
The story of a grieving mother consoled by her religious beliefs is also a story about ends justifying means. The end (consolation) is offered as a justification of the means (a lifetime invested in false beliefs about reality). This is troubling.
To borrow from theology for a moment: ..."and the Truth shall make ye free". That's "free". Not "happy". Not "content". But "free".
We simply can't afford religion's ongoing damage, no matter its effectiveness as a source of illusory consolation.
5
An interesting, well-written, and well-thought-out piece.
I have just one question, which I'll preface with the disclosure that I am an agnostic, in the literal sense of the Greek roots: "without knowledge." I don't know, and believe I can't know, what's true in the theological realm. If my life (or anyone's) has a spiritual dimension, I am unaware of it.
My first issue with religion is that of the scientist: Religion is untestable, and thus unfalsifiable. Do you believe that one can somehow get past this fundamental problem to take advantage of the benefits you have identified? If so, how?
Thank you for a most interesting read!
The point atheists make about religious belief is that it has no basis in fact. Few atheists would care to correct a grieving mother who is finding comfort in religion. The issue is whether spiritual claims are true or not, and especially if they have any place in political discourse and public policy. Whether or not religious beliefs can be true is important to those who pursue knowledge and who strive to discover what can actually be known about our universe. Connecting religion to the so called reptilian brain region in human beings, as the author does, doesn't make sense. Reptiles aren't concerned with spiritual matters. Finding comfort in spiritual beliefs seems an ancient, but clearly human, trait. But humans have many evolved characteristics that aren't in themselves noble. I consider religion one of those. Finding comfort in religion doesn’t validate it. Many have truly found comfort in in the awe that can be experienced seeking to understand the universe as it is.
2
So basically, what you're saying is that it's ok to console yourself with self-deceit. I have experienced plenty of loss in my life and at no point have I felt the need to console myself with something I don't believe is the truth. No thanks. Reality may be painful but at least it's real.
5
I am with the native Americans who thought the earth was their mother and the animals their kinfolk.I do not believe we are masters of the earth but I do believe we are despoilers of the earth and that the idea that we can trash the earth and move on comes from religion... the Christian religion. I have never felt that I needed religion in order to be strong , ethical, moral, or to survive an ordeal,but I was not taught that as a child. World views are formed early and are extremely tenacious. We are in turmoil at this time because change is needed and change is coming and it is hard to deal with and frightening. Change will come and hopefully all this chaos will eventually usher in a positive result. The Dark Ages preceded the Enlightenment. Hold that thought.
1
After surgery you get a dose morphine, and it is a relief. It does not mean you should get used to it, or that is good for your body.
3
"Religion is the most powerful cultural response to the universal emotional life that connects us all."
I understand how that statement could apply to so many, but from personal experience, I have found the true test of religion's power and faith comes at the darkest moments in one's life. My family were deep, religious Catholics. When my mother died of lung cancer, everyone but one brother turned their backs on the Catholic Church, God and His teachings. The anger, bitterness, and pain from her death scarred them in their remaining years on Earth.
I just found out that the one brother who believed the deepest in God and the Catholic faith has colon cancer. Instead of receiving treatment and being probably cured from this cancer, he is paralyzed with fear, is taking no preventative nor curable action and is more angry at God and the Catholic Church than when my mother died.
Religion can fill a void, can offer comfort, hope, peace - but not always and not to every person. Sometimes the pain and disbelief, and especially the emptiness felt after a loved one has departed is so overwhelming and unbearable, no degree of comfort or emotional or spiritual help can be mustered. That's kind of where I am right now. I'm so angry at my brother for being so afraid, he will not survive. I'm also incredibly angry that neither religion nor God can offer my the answers or peace I crave and wish I had. Religion truly is not a one-size-fits-all proposition.
1
To a religious person of today, the advance of a post-religious age looks a lot like a reversion to a pre-religious age.
2
"a pre-religious age"
We'd have to be going back to time before the Ancient Egyptians to find such an age. I'm expecting you mean something like cave-dwelling stone age people. I'm no expert but I'm assuming that at least some stone age populations did not have religion. My impression is that they lived rather brutish, short lives.
So, to religious people of today it looks like we're going back to some kind of brutal stone age? Is that what you mean?
For me the future looks so much more rosy. I see greater food security than ever before, longer lifespans than ever before, freedom from most physical pain. I see unheard of wealth, with convenient access to clean water, the energy needed to cool or warm ourselves, etc.
I also see a society in which there is more and more personal freedom, to the point where people are now even able to choose their own genders, a society where social constraints are so few that people are free to choose their own paths in life.
If this is what a "pre-religious" age looked like, then we lost a lot when we accepted religion.
The world would still look a great deal better, of course, if we didn't have to contend with suicidal religious fanatic IS terrorists, or political/business leaders determined to profit off the destruction of our environment while ignoring the evidence of climate science.
2
At risk of inducing some serious eye-rolling, we need to include in our contemplations here the concept of goddess as well as god. Or learn from our indigenous fellow travellers and speak of spirit. Just to say the word "god" limits our conceptual prospects. Incidentally, I just had to correct auto-correct who unbidden, insisted on capitalizing the word "god" - twice. It is so difficult for Westernized cultures to get past that old white guy with a long beard sitting on a cloud. Even auto-correct doesn't try to capitalize "goddess" or even "spirit".
1
The author bases his idea that we need religion based on the succor given by a belief in an afterlife, but not all religions have that belief. And religion is not an ‘opiate’ because “As often as it numbs or sedates, religion also riles up and invigorates the believer.” Drugs do that, too.
3
While yes while no amount of scientific explanation or sociopolitical theorizing is going to console a grieving mother people of faith should not be trying to turn religion into science either. They have also done themselves absolutely no good by letting the anti-gay gang steal the spotlight. Big mistake especially when trying to "win over" young people.
What Religion Gives Us (That Science Can’t)
--
Here's one thing that religion gives us: the right to discriminate against LGBS people. Probably can be stretched further to include other minorities, possibly even ethnicity.
Isn't religion just the best?!
3
No, no sorry let religion die as the absurdity it is. If the odd person thereafter no longer gets relief from it's false claims, so be it. Just give it up, clearly the advantage offered for the simple, comes nowhere close to the damage it otherwise does to our world.
2
So, you're basically saying we should use religion like a drug. Like we use anti-depressants to deal with trauma. Or ecstasy, or booze or pot. Just another opiate for the masses.
If we viewed it this way, it would certainly do a lot less damage to our world and it's occupants.
3
GRief therapy is more helpful than religion which has still yet to explain if God is all good why do bad things happen to good people ? It is more helpful in my mind to share my feelings with others who are or have experienced tribulations than to do meaninglessness rituals and listen to hypocrites talk about Gods goodness and mercy. That is self denial as well as a fools errand. Atheists turn to the common humanity we all have and accept that life is not fair and how we deal with it and help others to deal with it is the critical part of healing. Religion is a placebo at best and at worst a cruel hoax.
2
What Science Gives Us That Religion Can't: Questions Leading To Truth And Awareness Unimagined By Our Ancestors . . .
2
Nonsense.
1
I seem to lack the God gene myself, but I still see its good points, and see the weakness in the atheist arguments.
"the incoherence of monotheism"...vs the coherence of polytheism?
"Religion still trades readily in good-and-evil narratives, and it gives purchase to testosterone-fueled revenge fantasies and aggression."
All ideologies do. The current atheist, Progressive, Left ideology has its own good-and-evil narrative giving purchase to testosterone-fueled revenge fantasies and aggression..."punch a Nazi", anyone?
You know what I talk about in Confession? How to deal with my anger when people who pride themselves on being open-minded and tolerant say how stupid I am for believing in God.
8
Need religion...sure, to start wars....not too many atheists favor eradicating people who believe differently than they do.
But atheists suffer from the same nonsense religious people do....belief without proof.
How bout we just take up agnosticism?
Might cut down on brokers touting stocks, too.....
"belief without proof"
Of course not all atheists hold identical views, just like believers in God. Nonetheless, I encourage you to read this short page on the issue of "belief" among at least some atheists. It ties in closely with your comment.
https://www.atheists.org/activism/resources/about-atheism/
So long as Religion teaches that "there is only one true religion and it is mine", there will be a continual struggle between people.
So long as Religion continues to interfere with the operation of fairness and equality by interfering with the Government via their religious beliefs, our Democracy will not be "That government of the people, by the people, for the people", it will disappear.
So long as Religion acts with hypocrisy, as in abuse of children, selling off properties that congregants paid for, stealing from its coffers, condemning people to hell if they do not behave in a certain way. then it is condemned to fail.
It is true that Religion offers solace and comfort when it is at its best, but the past and present actions of its various leaders has put many believers in a precarious position. It is why we are becoming more secular.
Spirituality has nothing to do with religion. That very part of the brain that gives us magical thinking also gives us the thinking that maybe we can help people without all the jargon.
Most Religions prey on the fear in people. It is not a good foundation for living a fulfilling life. But spirituality is.
2
So a person is permitted to feel awe at the spirituality of J.S. Bach but not at the insight of Einstein? Both achievements pass my understanding, but I say this: Finger wagging in the presence of such things looks pretty stupid, no matter who does it.
Just a question: have more people been consoled by religion or slaughtered in the name of religion?
5
Professor Asma gives us a nice story here but does not support the premise that religion gives us something that science can't.
Are there no alternatives to belief in an afterlife for dealing with grief? Would meditation, stoicism, counseling or other method be more effective?
Science can help us answer these questions; religion gives us stories.
I think this article underestimates the ‘spiritual’ potential and hopefulness that science could offer. In the world of science, energy is neither created nor destroyed; it merely changes forms (first law of thermodynamics). We human are no exception to this law. Our biodegradable bodies may have a biological death, but our energies will remain in the cycle of universe, albeit in different forms.
People who have lost loved ones can take comfort in this fact as well as in the possibility that there may be parallel universes where their deceased loved ones still exist. These are not bizarre assumptions, they are scientific possibilities. We know very little about our universe and laws that govern it. Time and space are vast, and so are their exciting prospects.
1
Obviously ritual and community are can help maintain emotional health in the face of hardship. Ritual and community can be created without religion.
My wife believes that when she dies she will be reunited with her family in Heaven. There's absolutely NO evidence that that will ever happen, or has ever happened to anyone. But if it comforts her, I'm not going to argue.
Although I do wonder what age her granny will be in Heaven. Will she be the elderly person my wife knows? When you're in Heaven, do you have to be the person you were when you died? Or do you get to pick another age? So many questions.
You insist on evidence?
Google the meaning of the word ''faith'' again.
The scriptures are full of that evidence if you're still looking.
https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Case-Christianity-Homicide-Detective-Investi...
1
Is religion any more delusional than science? Science provides lots of answers, especially of a technical nature, but no real answers to the only questions that matter. E.g., Why are we here? What's it all about? or even less epistemological questions like: What is love? Is love the most important thing? Does love survive death? So many people claim to have the answers to these kind of questions, but it seems to me that people pick their own special delusions and their choice of delusions seem to steer them in as many directions as there are people. Maybe the best question any of us can ask was provided by the Star Trek episode, "The City on the Edge of Forever" where Kirk points to a star and tells Joan Collins that someone on a planet circling that star three hundred years in the future posed the question that replaced all the questions about love. The question was: "How can I help?" This was a TV show first broadcast fifty years ago, but I still think that's the best question to ask. It's the question least fraught with delusion.
"Why are we here?"
Have you considered the possibility that this question may have NO correct answer obtainable from any source, religious or scientific, because there may be no reason why we are here?
I don’t know about many religions that are much like analgesics. Most of them almost demand a passionate life long commitment. It’s not like u can just swallow some dogma, feel better after a bit, and then go on with life. Even in the real bad times, more and more of us find other ways to cope cause we are not willing to sell our souls forever even if it would be easier sometimes. And then there’s that sinking feeling when you realize that because you were in pain someone tried to take advantage of you by offering emotional guaratees. In the end, that can pretty easily become a dependent state of living...a dark place you might want to avoid if u can. I too fell the pull, but I not going there unless I really have to...and even then might be better to hang in there, let some time pass, drink wine, learn about how humans process pain, trust a friend to help, talk about it out loud endlessly to someone who has the great friendship that listens fir as long as it takes, take some meds under good supervision. Would rather try these human things and not turn to too much magical thinking.
1
I think it is even simpler: religion can provide a moral basis for beliefs. Morality is the concern for the common good. The common good is the opposite of the "winner take all" ethos in our culture.
2
The problem here is, that you cannot compare science and religion. Science is a methodology and system of learning and collating knowledge, not a system of beliefs. The human psyche is complex, and "science" does not proclaim to have all the answers. The problem is that most every religion does claim to have the answers, and they often conflict. I think people are entitled to believe in what they choose, even if others don't agree, so long as it does not harm themselves or others. But to compare religion with science is a meaningless exercise.
6
Is there any modern religious institution that purports to "comfort and heal" and do that alone? No way. That's never been the point. The point is to codify cultural rites into a rigid, scripted dogma and to use it as a means of control. Perhaps it's the ritual that comforts us and gives us a feeling of connectedness. It needn't be inextricably linked to doctrine, which is constantly changing anyway. Many rituals, say funerary rites for example, are simply human—they even predate religious order. Any person can perform a ritual (say, spreading a loved one) and feel a sense of emotional comfort. You don't need a book or a guru or a priest to tell you how to do this.
1
So the reason to believe in amazingly awful stuff, is that if you believe you can be consoled? Sorry, that doesn't cut it.
And only believers can be consoled by religious consolation.
Yes, fear and grief will drive some to religion (no atheists in foxholes, etc), but really consolation comes from active listening and words of support and caring.
Do YOU really think that a believer wants to hear that God took the loved one? Or made any decision for a child to die? Do you think a believer wants to hear that their dead loved on is 'in a better place'.
I think you over rate the consolation of belief, and surely unrated the terrible damage that belief causes, or rather damage done in the name of belief.
2
Please remember 2000 years from now what kind of "religion" would help us shape humanity. Human conditions including suffering will remain for certain but the current "religion" will almost certainly change too. How about "psychiatric" helps like drugs? I know even now there are so many people being helped by these products that derived from science. It is not that current religion will not have room for our suffering 2000 years from now. It is that religion is another form of "drug".
2
The problem too often with religion is that it does exactly what you accuse science of doing. Namely it claims that it is Truth, and often "Fact". Religion is not presented as a useful ritual. Nor as an avenue to emotional release. It is usually presented as "The Way." "The Righteous Path." The "Divine Light." And as an exclusive club that claims that "others" will not gain salvation. And that others do not even have a "name." I agree that it can help overcome loss and grief. But so can any other number of "rituals" or compassionate world-views. Considering the cruelty and bigotry enacted in the name of religion, it is nowhere near worth the price.
3
Once upon a time Religion, namely Christianity in the West, deemed itself a science. Science with a capital S. Once real Science adopted various methods of proving its claims - Religion wasn't even let in the house.
But the thing that Religion had that Science never had, was means to express itself to the public at large. As Religions were always a means of control. Be it a tribe, or many diverse peoples over large distances. Religions, again Christianity in the West, developed a language unto itself to explain its meanings and also how the natural world came to be. But it was made easy to follow, on purpose. It explained how we humans were to deal with our humanity, and the natural world. It started out that way, as it needed to pull followers in and keep them.
Science didn't start that way, never had to draw followers in (other then to attract the interested) to sustain itself, or control a population. Science developed a language that was for the insiders only. A trait once common to many Religions, (insider special language and texts) - but once Christianity went the vernacular route, and made its texts available to those who could read it, (Islam did the same) being an insider with years of study was not needed.
Various Science advocates talk about this lapse all the time. How to better explain itself to a highly superstitious public, drenched in magical imagery and thinking.
Knowing the true cycle of life can be consoling - when one truly understands it.
2
So what a grieving mom needs are made-up stories? Truth is more liberating than reassuring fairy tales, especially to a grieving mother. Grief is a terrible thing, but to cope by seeking solace in dubious stories is certainly not the correct response. Besides, the practice of "Science" was never meant to function as a palliative for grief. The scientific process is a mechanism though which we understand the natural world. Yes, medicine is derived from science, but to place the burden of alleviating painful human emotions on "Science" is absurd to begin with.
4
I am a believer. When I can be. Science tells us "how," religion attempts to deal with "why." Perhaps after our death we will see a murdered son -- or a parent or friend who has died -- again. Perhaps not. Ultimately, however, I believe that to have faith means to say that all is in God's hands whether we ever have knowledge of that -- a knowledge that is ultimately beyond us as mere human beings, and must be since we are finite -- or whether we, in death as in life, never do. If all is in God's hands, God does not need to reveal that to me -- ever.
4
It is not logic, or the belief in God, or magic, or the supernatural, that is to be feared. It is the next step of "them against us" that is to be feared. Any constraints of belief that divide us from empathy lead to further suffering. Belief is routinely co-opted to compel others: See the intolerant dismissal of others in many responses, in which those that believe themselves religious are just as likely to be as unkind as the non-religious.
1
I avoid using the word 'God' because it's so loaded with assumptions of what that means (usually the assumption of a white bearded man sitting on a cloud judging people and doling our favors).
My definition of God (as someone who does not identify with any particular religion) is a divine, creative, non-judging energy that encompasses all that is. I also know that the times I've prayed and meditated on certain things, things that I can't explain have happened in my life. I don't consider these miracles, but manifestation of that divine energy.
And I believe in science, too. They are not, in my mind, mutually exclusive. And neither science nor religion truly explain first cause of all that is.
4
Since when have beliefs been based on truth? And this applies across the board, including we scientist who wed our paradigms. What is true is that some actions are more effective than others, but only for the criteria that are evoked for those games for which we invest our ego. Should this be the case it will always be an exercise in our personal hubris to judge or critique others irrational emotionally based beliefs. Particularly when they work. This is not to say that all beliefs are created equal, some are more effective and some are more harmful regarding various national concerns. These differences are and should be part of a respectful public debate.
2
I am an atheist and I recently lost my mother. Although losing a child is doubtless much harder, my lack of religious belief has helped me with the process of grieving my mother. I celebrate her full life and memories, and cherish all the moments we had together, without need for the false hope that I will one day meet her in an afterlife. Atheists don't use "science or social theory" to grieve, but we also don't need religion. Actually, the hardest part of grieving has been to convince my religious friends that I am coping well, and don't need to be converted at this moment. Atheists, at the end of the day, can use the same psychological coping mechanisms that that religious people employ, with a different intellectual framework. We are, after all, all human, and not that different from each other. Grieving is a process that can (and has been) investigated scientifically, and what research shows is that using a variety of strategies is what best helps most people. Statements like the one in the article, that imply that there is a single (religious) route to consolation, do more harm than good.
9
That the evidence herewith of us even HAVING this discussion can't even begin to empirically align with the proven impossibility of surviving the big bang is both in and of itself the source of power -- magic, religious, whatever -- if BEING was meant to BECOME. Hence the purpose of life's emotional gray areas of the 'what ifs?' stringing together our collectively momentous moves forward and not the selfish binary operatives merely checker-boarding our every black & white move.
1
Personally, I am not consoled by believing in things that don't exist. Or in things that people thought were factually true a few thousand years ago, but now have been proven clearly false. Even religions have accepted some of the obvious facts: the earth is not flat, for example. Pretty hard to believe that when we've taken photos from space that show its true spheroidal shape. Yes, there are many questions we have been unable to answer. But making up answers or accepting beliefs from a few thousand years ago doesn't seem useful to me.
3
I would argue that it is spirituality that fills the voids science cannot - not religion. Knowing that there are things greater than us.
3
Most of the greatest philosophies that the West has ever produced, are Christian philosophies. So it's absurd to start believing that religion would "irritate the rational brain" (what does that even MEAN ... ?).
Science produces proven truths, and one of those proven truths today is that for a human being to thrive, he/she needs to develop brain networks that link the higher and deeper regions of the brain together, through a specific practice that Julie Simon for instance calls "self-care" and an Inner Nurturer voice.
It's also a fact that certain religions have developed practices that do exactly that (= scientifically proven fact).
So of course religions are not by definition "irrational".
The author is simply making a common mistake among non scientists: to confound absence of proof and proof of absence.
There is no scientific proof that God exists. But there's also no scientific proof that he does NOT exist. So from a scientific point of view, only agnosticism is legitimate here.
From there on, each one of us has to take a decision: do I decide to believe that God exists, or not?
BOTH decisions are equally rational, precisely because there are NO scientific experiments proving that one of them would be irrational.
CONCLUSION: Asma's idea of religion is irrational ...
2
There is no proof that unicorns do NOT exist.
Lack of any physical evidence of their existence does not obviate the possibility that that evidence does indeed exist somewhere, yet unfound.
So ... based on that ... Do I structure my view of myself, my community, the planet and the universe on the possibility that unicorns do or don't exist?
1
Religion will always be ineradicable because human beings are emotional creatures. Superstition and wishful thinking are endemic to our species. But they're not good for us and must be reduced as much as possible. Science gives us the power to understand and improve our world.
3
Human beings are approximately 98% chimpanzees... if you ever doubted it, survey these posts. On the other hand, how very cool of us to time our personal existences to coincide with the death of human reason, as the sun sets on civilization. How appropriate that the beginning of our end days coincides with our rule by a giant, bloated colostomy bag, leaking and reeking... the antithesis of the idea of man that our species has nurtured for its conscious existence.
If you somehow find all this to be evidence of god, congratulations on constructing a supreme being with an infinite sense of humor.
why pick on science as the foil for religion? There's no question that people can be emotionally crippled by terrible, unspeakable atrocities but is religion the only solution to this suffering?
Perhaps the same energy devoted towards working on ways to help others in the same situation or to help prevent terrible things from happening again would be an equally useful means by which a victim or sufferer could find some degree of solace or purpose in this life. Or do we need to believe in something that has no basis in fact and offers nothing other than the belief of something, which is totally unverifiable, on the other side, in the 'after-life'. Rather, focus on this side of reality and make a change for better in the here and now.
4
Why would believing in things that are clearly nonsense provide anyone with any comfort?
I've just never been able to fathom this. But it seems most of humanity - through differing, contradictory faiths - are differently wired.
5
You are not "differently wired", you are blind.
1
This article spoke to the influence and purpose of religion in modern lives and included neuroscience perspectives. I myself include in the debate "personal religion" versus "institutional religion."
Personally, the teachings of Jesus Christ are the best guideposts for me, especially his passionate directives regarding how we ought to treat the poor, the sick, the meek, strangers (such as immigrants and refugees), women and the bereaved. So I baptized my children in the Catholic church of my birth, and raised them to behave in a Christ-like manner.
However, the rigid, patriarchal hierarchy of the church, the massive atrocity of clergy pedophilia, their refusal to share power with women, their stance against gay marriage, female ordination, divorced members, birth control, abortion and their disheartening financial corruption means that we do not participate in the everyday life of our parish anymore. We are Christians at heart and in action, but our consciences prevent us from lending support to the institutional church.
I vote for "personal religion" versus the behemoths of large churches seeking political power and control. We can each believe that which nurtures us spiritually, comforts us, challenges us and leads us to contribute to the betterment of life for everyone, especially the alleviation of suffering. Where I diverge from church life is when I see "Christians" distorting and perverting Christ's clear teaching because they want power, control and wealth.
4
But belief in an omnipresent being does?
1
If your religion require that you persecute other human beings who are not like you, your religion is wrong. Religion can be a human's path to God. Religion has just as frequently been the path to Hell.
Perhaps fairy tales work but that is a flimsy reason for religion. For every person consoled there is won tormented by tales of everlasting suffering for people they love. A good grief consular would be time better spent.
2
Both times that my wife suffered miscarriages we created rituals for ourselves, that we shared alone. We symbolized our lost hopes and buried them in favorite, beautiful places. They are still vivid in my memory over 30 years later. When our son was born with the help of friends we created a beautiful naming ceremony to which all our friends were invited. We are not believers but we came from religious families or experiences and knew the power of ritual. At our marriage, we created a ritual that enabled our religious family members to bring their beliefs to the circle. I get little out of meditating alone, but have been greatly buoyed up by meditations in Unitarian church services, in which many fellow congregants were agnostic or atheist. I believe many nonbelievers are creating similar rituals and communal experiences that have emotional power.
Curiously, for an agnostic white man, the most effective solace I have received in recent years when at my most depressed, was from an African American minister (Rev. Lynice Pinkard) at her church. Her capacity, rooted in Black church tradition and music, for holding the pain of her congregation alongside compassion and hope was so powerful, I was able to set aside my differences of belief to just experience the emotion. I shed many tears in her pews and felt my life given back to me. I am no more likely ever to become a Christian than I was before: for her the belief was critical but for me it wasn't.
3
I don't think the decline of religion has to do with scandals or the horrors of extremists. Mainstream religions simply fail to address spiritual needs in the contemporary world.
Religion can to many of things the author claims, console, invigorate, etc., but the fact remains that most people I know have drifted away. I can't remember the last time I went to a non-secular wedding, for example. Younger people I know aren't rejecting religion; they're simply ignoring it.
It's not a failure of people not appreciating religion, it's that religion has failed to address the needs, hopes, and desires people have in the contemporary world. For many, it's simply irrelevant. There are other avenues of spiritual expression.
1
Very interesting observation. Thanks.
Sometimes it appears to me that religion => science represents a continuum of development in humanity's animal impulse to try to understand the world.
It's all an attempt to pursue knowledge. Over the millennia, as we have gathered more and more data, developed and practiced more and more approaches to organizing that data, and passed that accumulating knowledge down the generations through language, we've moved from some very crude and inaccurate methods to ever more powerful methods.
Go back a few thousand years and the Ancient Egyptians will tell you that the goddess Nut would swallow the sun at sunset and give birth to it at sunrise. It would then make its way across her body, the sky until evening, when she would swallow it again.
We've accumulated quite a bit of contrary data since then and come up with a theory that seems far closer aligned to the physical facts.
But basically, the ancients and ourselves are acting on the same innate human impulse, a need to understand the world we live in. After all, the more accurate our understanding, the better our chances of survival in it.
Hypocrisy won't help a grieving mother either. Evangelicals support of Trump is trashing christianity....
6
Traditionally religion has functioned to mediate the relations between the living and the dead. Traditional religion is basically a symbolic representation of this mediation. Churches nowadays seem more about community outreach and inclusion. In contemporary life we find more of this symbolic mediation in psychics such as the Long Island Madam etc., who act to assure their subjects that their dead relatives are now happy or at peace, seemingly taking the place of the traditional function of the church. Neuro-chemistry? Reptile brain? It remains a question of the power of the symbolic in our lives, that's the power and presence you feel, that's what you mistake for the presence of a deity.
http://schismletternetpress.blogspot.com/
https://letternetpress.com/
Praying to the dead, and praying for the dead, are both explicitly forbidden in protestant churches. In Christianity, once you die, you are out of reach and are in God’s hands.
1
today's court ruling just gave us what science would/could never give. Professor Asma, it's time to re-evaluate what you just said.
2
I can think of no earthly reason for religion. I, personally, feel no need for spirituality, or belief in imaginary entities, or control by patriarchal groups. I feel no "emptiness" due to my lack of need for religion. Nor do I understand why having a belief in the afterlife makes people behave differently, or feel better when people die.
When I die, I'm donating my body to a medical school - they are ALWAYS in need of cadavers and it is the best interests of society for physicians to be well-educated. When they are done with the remains, I don't care what they do with them. Purina Human and Rice seems like a good way to quit wasting protein.
And guess what, people? EVERYONE dies; get a clue and get used to it.
4
When my father died after a long decline due to early-onset Alzheimer's, science said his suffering was over.
On the other hand, religion is split on this. Many demoninations of Christianity teach that since he himself was not a Christian, he is now in hell and will suffer for eternity.
I know which of these two is more comforting to me.
4
"Religion" only serves to perpetuate and slow the grieving process. It is not solace as much as the fantasy that religion is, may substitute as a means to incrementally accept, but essentially prolongs the inevitable steps of grieving. In no way do either science, or religion help one to grieve. To say one does nd the other doesn't is a false equivalence.
1
Religion provides: All the pain and suffering in the world and bogus justifications for any and all behavior along with a concrete beliefs that don’t change, even if the evidence contradicts the dogma.
Science provides logical observations about the world around us and adjusts its findings accordingly.
1
Our very religious neighbor was treated for cancer, and she told us she had no fear because she knew she was going to heaven one day. She then went on to describe a paradise that was populated exclusively by young and healthy versions of her friends, relatives, and members of her church.
Apparently, her religion will be giving her different neighbors up there, but that's OK. We hadn't made any plans.
2
I'm going to wade into the morass of atheists, agnostics, etc.who are posting and admit I'm a practicing Catholic.
Yes, religion is "magical" if you believe in and appreciate a creator who specializes in the seemingly impossible.
Please stop being so patronizing to those of us who practice some type of faith. We aren't all extremists and actually do good things in our communities. Can the same thing be said about you?
3
KS - yes the same can be said. But we don't do it because of a reward-punishment system. Its based on the realization that the community is sustained and driven by participation of a few for the many. Not because a Supreme Being has demanded such participation. (and if one is of certain Proty sects, even that means little to the God, where faith means all.)
Personally, I dont care about other peoples faith. Fine by me if it keeps you warm. I only care when its used as a weapon against others. And a justification for hate, and other less then humane acts.
I like that you used the term "practicing." As the practice never ends, and demands attention to the discipline, as its never mastered. Something I find sorely lacking in most sects under the Protestant umbrella. Too many dont practice, but instead lay claim to absolute salvation, and fully mastery. Which is so not the case, as we see these days with the US Evangelical Political parties making demands on Congress to control our lives, and undermine the US Constitution.
2
What distinguishes humans from animals?
Animals are rational.
What distinguishes Sapiens from Neanderthal?
Neanderthal did not get on a boat to cross the open ocean where no land was visible on the horizon (quoting Svante Paabo).
QED.
1
This is an incredibly condescending discussion of religion and, if representative of the quality of work at American universities, a poor reflection on our institutions of higher learning.
3
If Christians, and Jews and Muslims and Hindus, etc, etc truly kept their beliefs to themselves, in their own homes and communed with their god in private, I might be more tolerant of religion and agree that the comfort it provides is not a problem or concern for anyone else.
However, I am daily confronted with a world in which India and Pakistan may come to nuclear war over religion, where Israelis oppress and slaughter Muslims in their mutual "holy land," where minorities are killed in lands from Sri Lanka to Alaska, and a nation whose population follows Jesus by making sure the poor don't have food or health care. Ok, so some people like to think they will live in eternal bliss. They are also making sure that this one world we are share is hell on earth.
1
Religion. Which Religion? Science. Which science?
Why does this writer, and most of the commentators here, utilize the words "religion" and "science" as if they had absolute unequivocal meanings.
What "Religion" are we talking about? Universalist Unitarians who often embrace a more "secular" approach? The religion of Santeria as practiced in Africa and The Americas? Or Shintoism? Or Judaism (reform, conservative or orthodox-- all a bit different in their approaches)? Or Christianity? Again, which branch? Bahai? Native American religions? There is no "Religion"? To say "religion" is responsible for x, y or z is is unsupportable.
The same with "Science". Which science? Eugenics, "scientific" basis for the death of millions during the Holocaust? The science which produced the atomic bomb? (Bombs don't kill people, people kill people? Hmmmm, no.) The science of Pasteur or Ishii (vivisectionist, microbiologist, biological warfare enthusiast)? The scientists of the Tuskegee Study or of the Union of Concerned Scientists?
"Atheists" are quick to point out all the evils of religion. Was World War I started by religious fanatics? The Civil War? The Vietnam War? Pedophile priests? What about Dr. Larry Nassar who sexually molested about 200 young women and girls.
One could go on and on. If "Atheists" and "non-believers" cry afoul of "religion's" hypocrisy at least they can claim their own extremely dirty laundry. Comments, Messers. Harris, Dawson and Degrasse Tyson?
5
Not so fast - no war was ever started to win land, or gold for no God. No incursions into far off lands to enslave natives was ever done under a flag of Atheism. To spread atheism. Communism simply didnt like having to vie for time and control with the religious.
Whatever the evil non-religious do they do because of their flawed humanity. They dont excuse their behaviors as being the work of no-God. Its just greed, lust and wanton desires to control others. Normal human behaviors. Nothing from the Divine.
But using a God to justify ones evil acts, especially when the words of their Messiah said the complete opposite...yeah...that cr/p is on a whole other level of psycho and evil.
Fight me because its your humanity to fight - not because the Divine is sending you messages to...
1
President Trump claims to be a Presbyterian, and the Presbyterians have not questioned his ethics or pecadillos (which aren't really little pecadillos but rather gigantic pecadotes).
Now there's a recommendation for religion!
I don't think religion per se is the problem; I think it's the man-made dogma.
Jesus was a wandering nomad who did not accumulate wealth. He didn't wear fancy robes or seek status; he was simply pointing to what was beyond himself.
Anyone who uses religion (whether an individual preacher or the Catholic Church, etc. ) to hoard wealth, create status hierarchies, and manipulate people are not, in my mind, god-loving. (I think there are wonderful Catholic nuns who do amazing work with the poor like the Nuns on the Bus, but as an institution, the Catholic Church (and many other religious organizations) are very problematic.
5
Enough, already. Why the assumption that we should choose between warm, accepting, comforting religion and cold-hearted science? Why do we need the fiction of a comforting deity (or deities)? An awareness of the vastness of the cosmos and the preciousness of each element is enough for me.
1
Because otherwise you might have a nervous breakdown and not be able to look after your surviving children.
I am completely perplexed (and frustrated) by this article - why is this author pitting science against religion in such a black and white manner as if the two cannot simultaneously exist? As a scientist, I find this incredibly unhelpful, especially in the political environment in which we are living, in which the powers that be are encouraging a sense that science is necessarily elitist. The author also provides no grey space by acknowledging how some live a spiritually rich life without religious affiliation - a way of living and experiencing life that is very common among younger generations (myself included).
8
When my mother died. I was devastated. But after the church service a member of the church said to me that I should not grieve so much because now she was in heaven.
This made be extremely angry. He was trying to deny the fact that she was dead, a fact that I explained to him in uncertain terms. Religion is just a way of denying
reality. Understanding reality is essential if one is going to
live and cope with the real world.
1
Asma says, "Religious practice is a form of social interaction that can improve psychological health. When you’ve lost a loved one, religion provides a therapeutic framework of rituals and beliefs that produce the oxytocin, internal opioids, dopamine and other positive affects that can help with coping and surviving."
Lots of experiences can have the effect attributed to religion. here. Substitute "soulful conversation," "shared sunset with a loving friend,'' and "holding hands with a caring companion." will, I am confident have the same positive impact.
Solace need not be religious. It just has to be empathetic and genuine to work.
1
I don’t follow any religious dogma but I enjoy reading about world religions and various spiritualties. And I have cobbled together what I consider a spiritual truth. It’s for me and I impose it on no one. But it does give me a sense of peace and purpose and meaning. Religion has been responsible for terrible things. I also believe it has done a lot of good although the good stuff is often quieter and less noticeable than the horrible stuff.
My paternal grandfather was a minister. He was one of the kindest, most loving, non-judgmental persons I ever knew. My other grandfather was also a kind, loving, non-judgmental person. He was a scientist and an atheist. My grandfathers enjoyed each other and respected each other’s beliefs.
When my atheist-grandfather died, I was in grad school. My grandparents (due to my parent’s divorce) hadn’t seen in other in many years. But my minister-grandfather called me to say, “I’m so sorry. He was a wonderful man. And even though I know he didn’t believe in God, I expect maybe I’ll see him in heaven.” If only we all could be like this; simply loving, kind and respectful.
4
"we still need religion"
It would be more accurate to say that religion is unavoidable. It's everywhere in the world, from the most primitive societies to the most cosmopolitan. It's part of our basic programming. The only question, regardless of the thoughts of a minority of deniers, is not "whether" but "which". Do we want large scale organization in the Catholic mode, dispersed authority like Judaism, animism, or pure anarchy?
1
The author confuses science with humanism. Science does not pretend to address these issues.
Religions are the collective repository of many of the key ideas that "make humans human".
Of course, my 18 month old grandson, being raised in a loving, but non-religious household, is already capable of soothing his 2.5 year old cousin and is 8 month old cousin, and will go immediately to them when they are upset--and calm them down. You do not need religion to demonstrate the best of humanity--or to provide comfort. (He also takes apart all the remotes.)
Religions are also the repository of the very worst of humanity, serving as a justification of utterly vile behavior.
Despite their ability to comfort and teach moral behavior, every religion contains base beliefs that are provable falsehoods. Challenging these obvious falsehoods: "immaculate conception", "night flight", etc. is the most certain way to get violent, intolerant reactions from alleged believers. These fundamental falsehoods, along with an eagerness to punish those who will not claim to believe them, make religions a perfect refuge for scoundrels who can then get others to do their bidding.
Our society and planet are heading for disaster--and the intolerance and falsehoods spewed by those who claim perfect knowledge of truth via their religion are the major reason why.
2
If one were to substitute the word "Trump" for the word "religion" throughout your article, it could very possibly explain why the Republicans are so completely invested in and mesmerized by Trump's irrational rants and actions. Turns out.....it's simple.......it has nothing to do with reasoning.......it's what Trump's followers desperately they want to believe. Just like religion.
2
A religion that’s only a palliative isn’t a religion.
1
Whoever brought me here, will have to take me home.
A philosophy teacher of mine once told me about the moment where his son, who was only 5, found out that Santa Clause wasn't real.
Rather than lie to him, the teacher told him that Santa Clause stood for something - giving - a quality that is important to remember during the holiday season. The caricature of Santa Clause, he said, means little in this - it is what he stands for that matters, and there is a time where we learn that as adults.
I feel the same way about Jesus and what he stood for, and religion in general. As a child, the order of commandments and the stories in the Bible are undoubtedly important for some children, but as adults it does not matter whether they happened, factually, or not. It is what they stood for that matters.
I do not see worth in religion from a systemic standpoint, and I too have hurled these scientific statements towards believers, but I believe, as this article states, that there is a worth to some of the qualities that exist in religion, and religious people. It does toe a dangerous line to take this stance, as religion is often responsible for some horrific ills, but if we could just remember that it's not the name of the religion, but inherent qualities that all humans require - love, dedication and peace - that drive its worth, then perhaps we could both see the diminishing of religion while the retainment of some of its better qualities.
2
Excellent article. As a scientist and an atheist, I agree with it. Religion has a clear adaptive value, especially in an environment of tragedy. I wonder about the selective and evolutionary implications of having or not having religious belief.
Just looking at the magnitude of the universe, it is clear some great power is behind it. The true goal of religion should be to put the individual in touch with their spiritual side. Unfortunately, many religious sects appear to be more concerned with power, be it over their members or political, rather than developing the spirit. Perhaps, our spiritual nature holds the key to the next great advancements in human evolution. Maybe Christ's miracles are a glimpse at what we all could do if we imitated Christ in our thoughts and actions rather than merely saying we are believers As Shakespeare had Hamlet say, there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
1
Nope, sorry, but it’s not clear at all.
Yes, people do bad things in the name of religion but many acts of great compassion and love are also done out of religious faith. Believe or not, it's up to you, but grant me the same consideration.
1
Many comments seem unfair to me. They take science at its disinterested, disciplined best, not as weaponized or as technology run amok. Religion, however, is treated as both weaponized and amok, not as the thoughtful and critical teachings of the great traditions. Religion and science should be seen as complementary. The lived world is pervaded with questions of purposefulness, obligation, justice, and yearning for significance. People say that religion is obsolete, but what is worth striving for and what we owe one another remain the central human issues. Religion is the approach that addresses the full scope of human life and experience. Philosophy traditionally operated in the same arena.
6
Dr. Asma seems to believe religion is the equivalent of dogma. I love Karen Armstrong's view on this, which I will now lousily summarize:
The practice of religion: participation in rituals, adherence to a code of morality, the sacred texts - all of these are ways into the deep well, the pre-rational, mythic layer of being that exists in all of us but, alas, is not often visited by many of us anymore. It is the place where wonder comes from, and awe, it is the place we are forced to at times - when pain kills our ability to cope rationally with life.
This way of being is completely different than the rationalist, Western mindset. The Greek myths didn't happen. Noah didn't float in an ark. But that doesn't mean these stories aren't true. That they aren't a valid response to what the world calls up from the deep well. My sense is that Dr. Asma has forgotten this way of encountering the world. He is a puzzled academic, still experiencing religion as mere dogma rather than sensing what underlies all religious impulses - the puissant, atavistic interchange between the world and the deep well.
5
That’s great and if you balance those beliefs and instances against all the people who have been killed in the name of religion on which sid worth every ledger do we sit?
2
When I lost my parents I didn't rely on religion to take the pain away. I just suffered, and time took most of it away. Loss hurts, and if religion makes you feel better then that's OK, but it is not a solution for everyone.
2
Religion can serve as a means of transcendence - to move beyond ego - although it is not the only way. Unfortunately, religion can also serve as a means to dominate and destroy in service of ego - although it is not the only way. It seems to me that religion takes the shape and agenda of the person or institution that invokes it. Institutions are vulnerable to corruption and so have not been, in my personal experience and study of history, ideal vessels for transcendence. Religious institutions (as do all institutions) seek to perpetuate themselves - seekers often sacrifice personal growth to serve the maintenance and empowerment of the institution. In the United States, the evangelical Christian movement seems to have been seduced and hijacked by the lure of wealth and power - it has been weaponized. I no longer recognize it as religious - it is merely another political faction competing for power and dominance over others.
4
"And feeling well is more important than thinking well for my survival."
Right up to the point that your groomed inattention kills you.
Well, one mother found solace to keep going because God. Swell.
Did you talk to any of the kids abandoned by their parents because God tells them that gays are from the devil?
I think everyone should have access to quality mental health care. But it doesn't come from invisible sky buddies.
4
Might I suggest that a more appropriate title for this well written essay would be "What Religion Gives Some People (That Science Can't)". I wonder what portion of these many benefits of religion is due to a placebo effect. Also does the level of one's education affect the susceptibility to magical thinking?
1
Our daily interactions with the world often leave something wanting, a sense of absence or loss. For some, such feeling is chronic, for others it peaks and disappears. Poets give the sensation names, like sehnsucht and weltschmerz, longing and world weariness (or the pain of life). Religions have been cobbled together in order to deal with these realities, but such constructs have too often had negative consequences: denial of reality, substitution of superstition for open-mindedness, and outright murder and mayhem. For this, no one has an answer that is satisfactorily applied to large numbers of people. Criticizing atheists for not solving it is kinda silly. Yet, atheists who take comfort in what they may have found while blaming their religious neighbors contribute little to the comfort of their neighbors. As Shelley noted:
"We look before and after, And pine for what is not;
Our sincerest laughter with some pain is fraught.";
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought."
2
I am a mother who has lost a child. I am also a scientist and an atheist. in those first terrible days, and in the ensuing weeks, months, now stretching into years, I never once sought "religion". My beliefs in the here and now and not in a fantasmogorical heaven did not change with the death of my child.
I get how this offers some comfort, but I do not believe in an afterlife. I will not see him again. We must love one another and make this a loving place while we walk this earth.
5
Sorry for your loss.
2
One must assume that Prof. Stephen T. Asma is a white academic unread in African American literature when he relates Neil deGrasse Tyson to sociology (Tyson is an astrophysicist) and claims that Malcolm X critiques religion for the same atheistic reasons as Marx and Mao. In fact, Malcolm X (also known before conversion as Malcom Little and later as Sheik Malik el Shabazz) was never an atheist. He was a devout convert to Sunni Islam all during his career as a black leader, He was shot to death by Nation of Islam rivals in Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom, Feb. 19, 1965.
5
War.
Yes, we can get sublime comfort from an irrational belief in an afterlife or god. However, this works both ways. We can get unimaginable suffering (read ISIS, crusades, etc.) from an irrational belief in god or 72 virgins in an after life.
Throw the baby out with the bath water!
3
The reasoning fallacy known as a false dilemma is concealed within the title and substance of this article: If science gives no emotional comfort during periods of personal trauma, that does not necessarily entail that we have no recourse but to embrace superstition.
And, by the way, the role of science is to illuminate, as best it can, how the world actually works regardless of how it makes us feel. That is, irrespective of human fantasies and delusions.
4
Religions generally tell us that if we submit to authority, allow ourselves to be abused, be used like slaves or make a virtue out of cowardly "eating bitterness" in the East, or be "meek" in poverty with outstretched hands that we'll be rewarded after we die in some fantasy land in the sky. How convenient is that for the world's 1% who reap unearned trillions by stealing the wealth and lives of the 99%? And mind you I am not a Marxist at all, rather this is simply the logical truth that explains why human elites have been such big boosters of religion for 1000's of years!
3
Spiritualism is an unique characteristic of humans. The mind demands explanation for the unexplainable. Whatever personal conclusions made in the appeal to the unknown should not be denigrated. The problem comes when it is aligned with required accouterments such as ceremonies, objects, or rituals. A selective smorgasbord is presented, but to be a true believer every offering is a requirement to belong. Universality is downplayed driving a tribal calling. Even families members will argue which tenets are acceptable. Religious beliefs are not meant to express facts, but should bring comfort to followers. Mayhem breaks loose when there is a hierarchy of spirituality. The primary purpose for individual solace is misused and divisive. It breaks connections with fellow citizens. By refusing to bake this cake based on an unreliable premise, Mr. Phillips missed the opportunity to promote his spirituality. He blocked it off by exercising conditions that should only apply to him. He humiliated the two people before him and rejected them as fellow travelers in this world.
Very interesting article. A further exploration of the limits of science would help. For example: Science cannot answer meaning questions; the "why" of human existence.
Over 200 years ago, the founder of theological liberalism, Friedrich Schleiermacher, located the foundation of religion in "Gefuhl", inadequately translated as "emotion". The essence of religion for him was a sense of "absolute dependence". Religion is more an existential reality than a scientific or rationalistic one. There are other kinds of rationalism besides science and the Anglo-American positivism.
The benefits of religions described here do not require belief in anything that contradicts science, or lead to the excesses of religious wars. A Naturalististic Theism permits the benefits of prayer and meditation, while giving up only a few widely held assumptions that are not essential to religion. It is belief in sacred texts that is responsible for most of the evil done in the name of religion, not belief in God. Many of the strongest arguments for atheism work only against a supernatural God, and have no impact on the question of the existence of a natural God. For more on this see the link below
https://www.academia.edu/35251245/Naturalistic_Theism
1
What has religion given us? Wars, hatred, persecution, pedophile priests, pastors, and rabbis; Magdalene Laundries; Galileo's trials, The Inquisition, an impossible belief in a worldwide flood and a broad denial of scientific principles; male cruelty and dominance of cultures and societies, support for racism, and the fantastical belief that a guy in the sky knows everything, knew each of us before we were born, and has everything in the universe, worked out. Science can't hold a candle to all that.
3
Science: Find stuff out.
Religion: Make stuff up.
4
Are we not the stuff of stars? I take great comfort in the possibilities of science.
3
Lots of nonsense in this article. Prof. Asma is giving philosophy a bad name.
5
"Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion." Edward Abbey
I'm with him. The horrors of organized religion, both in the past and present, glossed over by the writer, far outweigh the benefits. We can have ceremony, ritual, and loving communities without beliefs that the writer himself acknowledges are false. I agree with E. O. Wilson that it would best if religious faith faded away altogether.
3
The idea that Atheism is supported by science is an example of what I call the Tilde Fallacy i.e. the belief that if your position contains a tilde (the logical symbol for negation), it doesn't need to be defended. In fact, Atheism is highly speculative form of theology with no more or less support than any other theological position.
https://www.academia.edu/15150092/The_Tilde_Fallacy_and_Reincarnation_Va...
A classic example of casuistry, the use of a particular "case" to argue a principle, like saying smoking isn't bad for you because my grandfather smoked 2 packs a day and lived to be 93. In the cited case, irrational religious belief comforted a family. How many millions have been persecuted or killed by irrational religious belief?
8
I am surprised how terribly thought out this argument is. Comparing science to religion is arbitrary. Religion is dangerous and awful on its own merits - scientific thought has nothing to do with it. Yes, scientists can't comfort grieving people - neither can actors, accountants, train conductors - what kind of discussion is this? Since science can't comfort people suffering, then religion is a good way to handle crisis? How about friends, relatives, community, and neighbors to help in time of need? And the pseudo-science excuses Prof. Asma makes for religion are ludicrous. How many millions have died in the name of all religions - and that's excused as the "exception." How many national and cultural divisions are created? How many intellectual discussions on the complexity of the world and universe are stifled by religious myths and ridiculous beliefs propagated by ancient books? Religion asks us to direct our hopes and discussions to an intermediary - God, rabbi, priest, etc. - instead of dealing with ourselves, one on one. When a man of letters such as Prof. Asma takes up its defense, it does nothing but bolster up the superstitious nonsense that has plagued Mankind for thousands of years. Religion is not the opiate of the people nor a healthy soothing release of neurochemicals in times of need. It's a childhood addiction to false ideas that most humans never grown out of because of societal and cultural fears of reprisal - from God or community or family.
5
Funny how the Scandinavians, the Dutch and all the other prosperous and happy nations of the world seemed to have missed the memo that they need God. With each new religion-coddling, crowd-pleasing pap that the NYT seems hell-bent to print, my respect for these Opinion pages dwindles.
5
I find it humorous AND sad that our supposedly non-partisan SCOTUS just found for the baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for two men going to hell.
Oh yeah he won! He won WHAT? The ability to humiliate two people so in love with each other that they want to make a life commitment?
I think that most of us who have married felt that was one of the most loving, most important milestones in our lives.
Yet this “Christian” baker felt that homosexuality was an abomination...in the old testament. Jesus didn’t have ANYTHING to do with that.
Since we agnostics/atheists are well studied in the bible here are other “abominations:”
-Egyptians eating with Hebrews;
-having an image of another god in your house;
-sacrificing your child to the god Molech;
-having sex with your wife when she is menstruating;
-taking your wife’s sister as a second wife; and
-eating pork.
Banned likewise is wearing mixed-fabric clothing, interbreeding animals of different species (impossible by the way--dogs don’t have puppy-foals with horses), tattoos, mocking the blind by putting obstacles in their way, and trimming your beard.
That second to the last one? Putting obstacles in the way of blind people? Mitt Romney while at prep school thought it was hilarious to direct a blind teacher into a closed door.
Professor Asma? Keep your religion out of our lives. You can believe in ANY magic or superstition, but do NOT sow hatred into the lives of people who have a different take on religion.
6
Religion as psychic balm would be a more salable proposition if most forms thereof didn't state that failure to exercise our god given free will to believe according to its dictates will result in eternal damnation.
3
I took a Philosophy Course (1-005) at my University about 53 years ago. Apparently nothing changes to some folks. Sigh.
1
There are so many implicit and unjustified assumptions behind the opinions defended in this op-ed, that it becomes difficult to see how it could have been written by a philosopher.
First of all, yes, science has shown that indeed, emotional management in the sense of self-regulation seems to be linked to the development of certain brain networks, and they mostly consist of increasing the neuronal circuitry that connects the upper part of the prefrontal cortex, to deeper regions such as the amygdala and limbic system.
More and more scientific studies now also describe which kind of practices increase those networks.
And yes, some of these practices have been originally invented by religions - in this case, Buddhist religions, more precisely. But they can be perfectly practiced in a secular way, so there's nothing particularly "religious" about them. There's certainly also nothing "irrational" about them either.
Secondly, science is ONE specific human practice, invented in order to produce verifiable, proven truths. Of course, that's a different exercice than developing certain brain regions.
But there has NEVER been ANY scientific experiment allowing us to prove that God or Allah etc. don't exist. That means that it's totally irrational to claim that ... it's rational to be "irritated" by belief systems that work with the hypothesis that he exists - as irrational as imagining that working with the hypothesis that he does NOT exist would be "rational"... !
1
Professor, you have missed a very important aspect to human emotions. We train them; from childhood.
Those trained in religious belief turn to religion for emotional support. It's a nearly inextinguishable behavior, long experience with the inutility of religion will not eliminate it; in dire need - ah, there it is.
Evidence- those trained in Christianity turn to the Christian god; those trained in Buddhism to Buddha. Every time.
Notice please- those brought up agnostic or atheist - do not collapse and die under great trials; nor do they suddenly become religious - unless, in fact, they had a very religious friend or relative who planted seeds when they were very young.
No comfort in science and rationality? On the contrary - this is how the world works; I am part of it. And oh- perhaps there are things we could do to make it better. Waiting for a deity to fix it - is proven pointless, by all the history there is.
5
I think the problem with religion that it could offer its benefits only to people who suspended their reasoning and agreed to believe in unbelievable. The reasonable person would see that religion is based on faith not facts, and could not help but doubts the validity of the doctrine, and therefore, he/she is beyond of the religious help. More people have knowledge, less of them believe in the God, independently of our knowledge how helpful religion could be. maybe, instead of trying to coerce all people in religion, we should look at other social institutions that will help us to feel connected, but on on basis of deceit.
3
Just because an opiate relieves pain, does not mean it should be prescribed. Removal from suffering is reasonable; however, are we pointing to long term or short term benefits? for the individual or society?
Are you, Stephen Asma, arguing that the masses are too unreasonable to live without religion or some other opiate? Perhaps, but then shouldn't we look at organized religions in the same way we look at Big Pharma? Who is concocting the message/drug, who is profiting, who is responsible for misdiagnosis and maltreatment?
3
Mr Asma says: "Religion is the most powerful cultural response to the universal emotional life that connects us all."
Perhaps, for some people. there are too many sweeping generalizations in Mr. Asma's piece.
Homo sapien is wired to experience awe, and wonder - as well as to create stories. Thus religion; thus, philosophy, and so on.
Religions are stories with many different plots and endings - and many different characters. Some of those stories bring solace to the believer; some of those stories are used to persecute and denigrate others.
We can't separate religion from the person; a good person will not purposely violate another, no matter her religion, *unless* that good person has been kept in a psychological cage, not permitted to explore or practice anything other than what some priest, pastor, imam or guru has led them to believe. Those are the kinds of conditions within religious practice that scare me.
the same goes for secular systems, like Chinese Communism, that permits no competition to its core philosophy.
I wonder what Mr. Asma would have to say about Evangelicals who support Donald Trump, no matter what he says or does. Their take on Jesus is one that gives them comfort when Trump acts as he does to force their beliefs about things like abortion on others, ironically, in ways that lead to an increase in abortion (i.e. limiting access to birth control)
Religions need to evolve; they can be good things, but too many believers use their belief wrongly
1
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich"--Napoleon (he got some things right). Life is a mystery, be kind.
4
I envy those who believe.
2
I pity those who believe.
We pity you who don't.
1
We aren't rational creatures, although we get some satisfaction in assuming so.
What is rational about love, or heartbreak? What is rational about having sex and procreating, not caring that our children inhibit our freedom and drain us materially?
What is rational about our ability to laugh at our own absurdity?
Professed atheists are like vegans. The rest of us really don't care about their chosen limitations.
4
If ritual practice is more important than explicit belief, as traditional religions decline, perhaps non-traditional, even non-theistic, forms of community will create new rituals.
2
Religion and spirituality are not the same thing. While both imply a belief in a higher power, a spiritual practice, unlike religion, does not require other people, a building, a denomination, saints or holidays. A spiritual practice is a personal, and mostly solitary, connection to God. Regardless of denomination, all religions and New Age philosophies agree that we are spiritual beings having physical experiences, not the reverse. If you believe this premise (I do) it is therefore not possible to NOT be spiritual because we are spirits first, and above, all else. This also means that our spirits live on after our bodies die and that they existed before we were born. It is a mystery that science cannot yet explain, but one day just might.
3
No, Bill Nye won't help us through profound grief, but Mary Oliver might. Or Shakespeare. Or Beethoven. The current batch of atheist writers aren't replacements for spiritual nourishment, but that doesn't mean that the secular world, with offerings of music, literature, natural wonder, and human connection, isn't up to the task.
4
Science to satisfy reason, religion to satisfy emotion. I had that a passing thought this morning. Religion teaches faith, faith is the foundation of hope. Hope is life.
4
A few years ago I saw a documentary about Holocaust survivors. One woman said she kept her sanity in a concentration camp by telling herself, every morning, that today would be the day they were rescued. She believed it despite all evidence to the contrary.
I've thought of her many times when I've answered my young children's questions about God. As an atheist, do I share my disbelief? Or do I leave the door open, so that they can better cope with pain that children feel so acutely?
I've also read that people with "skill in lying" tend to be more successful than less effective liars. That's even true when they're lying to themselves. Swimmers who believe, "I will win this meet" are in fact more likely to win.
Maybe useful beliefs are better than accurate ones.
1
You could tell your kid what's true for you - and that they will discover their own truth in their own time.
2
I'm touched that the student's family was saved by the mother's irrational but necessary belief system, but I have always regarded religion as a means to compel obedience; that is, obey or you will be punished in the afterlife.
I remember the old axiom that a preacher and a philosopher are both looking for a non-existent black cat in the depths of a lightless mine shaft. The only difference is the preacher finds the cat.
2
It is quite amazing how many people in the comments section here believe they have the authority to validate (or invalidate) my subjective experience.
4
That's the crux of the matter, though. Subjective experience is valid, but when it goes beyond subjective experience and pretends to be objective, as many of the religious people out here in Colorado and beyond tend to do when they want to impose their religious beliefs on our society and government, we run into trouble. You can comfort yourself however your choose, but please keep it in your private life, especially when it comes to my kids school, and things like evolution and climate change.
3
How patronizing. As if your biases are better than mine.
2
I'm pretty sure the only thing religion gives people is an excuse to discriminate.
2
Excellent article.
David Bentley Hart said this about atheism:
“...Materialism ... offers a refuge from so many elaborate perplexities, so many arduous spiritual exertions, so many trying intellectual and moral problems, so many exhausting expressions of hope or fear, charity or remorse. In this sense, it should be classified as one of those religious consolations whose purpose is not to engage the mind or will with the mysteries of being, but merely to provide a palliative for existential grievances and private disappointments. Popular atheism is not a philosophy but a therapy."
1
Sorry, you got it wrong, @Livonian. To be an aetheist is to keep your mind open to the possibilities of the universe, and to have confidence in your ability to keep trying to understand, as an individual acting alone in the world. These days, especially, I wouldn't trust any religion to tell me what to do any farther than I can throw them, and since they are weighted down with their pre-conceived notions, racism, greed, aggression, violence against non-believers, and pederasty, I can't throw any religion very far at all.
4
Wow, you subverted yourself from the first word in the quote. Atheism≠materialism. Mr. Hart is shifting the goalposts from the get go.
2
With respect, you seem to not know what atheism is. It is not merely a rejection of or disagreement with religion or religion's definition of God. The "spiritual person" who doesn't believe in religion is not an atheist. He's a spiritualist.
Atheism is materialism in that is certain that everything is material and can ultimately be measured as a part of the material universe, with enough time, science and resources.
There is little consensus as to what constitutes a religious belief, especially as many religiously devoted people of faith flat out deny the "reality" and legitimacy of the beliefs of other religiously devoted people of faith. In addition, though most religious people believe in some concept of "God", some do not, and that opens up a whole set of other issues and questions, totally apart from those brought out by the often mutually exclusive concepts of God held by different believers.
Though there is often considerable overlap, I believe God and religion are very different things. I see God as essentially a placeholder for the answers to the unanswered questions humans have at any given moment, which is why the concept of God changes. (Once we understood lightning, we no longer needed Zeus.)
No one denies that religious beliefs, in specific instances, can be beneficial to specific individuals in a way that a rational and/or scientific explanation cannot. However, that is not the fundamental question. Rather, it is whether those positives outweigh the negatives, when it comes to society at large.
The gratuitous, snide poke at Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson in this article is entirely uncalled for. In addition, I have no doubt the unidimensional stereotyping of them is simply wrong. What I do doubt is whether the author, philosophy professor Stephen Asma, would appreciate being the punching bag for a column questioning the relevance of philosophy in the real world.
3
Religious, spiritual truths are not expressible in everyday human language. The image of re-uniting with your loved ones after death is an approximation to a truth which is beyond human comprehension, it may be the best approximation we are capable of right now. But approximations are not irrational -- they are what scientists and mathematicians routinely resort to when exact solutions are not accessible.
1
If it isn’t true, it isn’t truly therapeutic. Many people have believed the story of Judeo-Christianity to be true. They believe that a man appeared about 2,000 years ago amid otherwise inexplicable events, that his coming was foreseen, and he claimed to speak the truth. He provided evidence to support those claims and there were hundreds of witnesses that attested to that evidence. The values he preached, love your neighbor, serve the poor, help the sick and imprisoned, seemed admirable. He also said beware of false prophets, by their deeds you shall know them. Namely, if you see someone claiming to be religious, but they don’t act that way, don’t believe them. Yes, he seemed to perform miracles. That is, he seemed to do things that are not explainable according to currently understood scientific law. But, people really seemed to be cured of leprosy and blindness and even seemed to rise from the dead, and people witnessed these events. They might not have been able to explain it, but they did not deny the evidence of their senses. Is the evidence of our senses always true? Many people believed that the sun revolved around the earth for ages, too. They had to deny the evidence of their senses to get to the real truth. All knowledge begins with some beliefs. Some beliefs can be ratified, others can not be ratified yet. We can still have good reasons for holding those beliefs. Yes, these beliefs are meant to be therapeutic, but not provide false comfort.
1
Science is comforting. The article specifically references Neil de Grasse Tyson but has the author ever listened to his description about what happens when a person dies? Science offers beauty and comfort as well. To suggest otherwise is simply incorrect.
5
The author's simple explanation for the persistence of religion betrays (apparently) a lack of due diligence when it comes to background research. The sociology and social history of religion are multifaceted and well-studied subjects with which she seems quite unfamiliar. Get thee to a library!
4
Five Thousand generations of humans beings have thought that orienting ones mind around religious notions, symbols, ideas, stories and cultural lore was a good idea.
Only in the last couple hundred years, with the ascent of scientific materialism, have people begun to toss religion aside in favor of exclusive emphasis on food, shelter, clothing, education, medical care, recreation and the life of the mind. And while upon initial consideration the discarding of formal religious thought seems not a hindrance to mental and social order, many devoted far-ranging minds -- e.g. Nietzche and Jung -- have vehemently warned that if you completely toss out religion, you better have a comprehensive substitute, because if you don't, people will fall into despair, nihilism, and social and psychic violence, as is coming true in our own time.
Once God is Dead, there needs to be a substitute for divine morality and divine justice. Without divine morality, you get Donald Trump and the destruction of life on the only planet known to sustain it. Without divine justice you get ISIS, the Taliban, the Khmer Rouge and Maoist purges and American zealots eager to introduce Sharia-style Christian Law.
Atheism is only a temporary solution against the spastic excesses of dying religious forms. The permanent solution is a new religion that meets the needs of all humans, cultures and life on the planet.
To the old religious forms, we must now say "you must be born again."
1
In the secular community, and particularly the atheist one, there is a strain of intellectual superiority. In a sense this article gives ammunition to the “believers are stupid” argument, and that isn’t a good thing. It’s difficult to avoid that with the intersection of faith and emotion, but it’s important we always be mindful of that, so that those of us who are non-religious don’t continue to form these biases.
2
Well said.
1
It's a response to the increasing phenomenon of religious people trying to impose their beliefs on our society as a whole. If the religious people keep personal beliefs personal, and there will be no trouble. But, try to influence our education, our science (especially climate science), and our politics, and they will experience push back. There is a religious war, but contrary to the propaganda of the fundamentalists, it's not American society that started it or waging it.
I'm willing to bet that most Americans don't have much knowledge of the Dominionist movement, but they are very real in their efforts to dominate our culture. It's worth looking up.
2
This is not a competition in which secularists and atheists are asserting superiority over religionists, it's the other way around. It is a struggle, initiated by the religious majority (9 in 10 Americans profess to believe in god, though it remains unclear how many of those respondents are just giving the "safe" answer) that seeks to create societal validation for its beliefs in some sort of self-reinforcing process to eradicate its own doubts.
This campaign takes various forms, from posting religious symbols and declarations in public places to coercing everyone to elocute their submission (by adding "under god" to the pledge of allegiance, which was not part of the original, but was pushed through during the Red Scare of the 1950's) to denying contraceptive coverage in health plans. The list goes on.
Very few secularists or atheists are invading the sphere of the religionists to impose their perception of reality on them, the way religionists canvass neighborhoods and knock on doors randomly. Secularists and atheists are defending the public sphere as neutral ground. That involves exposing the arrogant fallacy of religionists that their choice to believe in a fantasy entitles them to impose it on others. This does not amount to an affirmative assertion of superiority.
2
In college I met a rabbi who did not believe in God. For him, it was the rituals, the structure and the moral and ethical questions that kept his interest. He felt that God was an unnecessary, even superfluous, component of a life of faith.
I didn't fully understand at the time--and maybe I still don't. But I got a better understanding when I read the book, 'My Year of Living Biblically,' written by a secular Jew who spent a year trying to live as close to Biblical law a possible. When the year was over, he still held no belief in a supernatural being, but he wrote that his life had changed; that the requirement, albeit self-imposed, to follow scripture centered him and gave him a sense of security he'd not had before.
As an atheist and scientist, I find tremendous beauty and peace trying to understand the world. But I've also worked with cancer patients and addicts and parents who have lost children, many of whom found solace in religion. I confess my helplessness to offer them anything from my life that might give them comparable comfort.
4
The column condescends to religion in utilitarian terms. Ignoring the many good scientists today who profess religious or spiritual beliefs and writing as if atheism is provably more rational than such beliefs, Mr. Asma argues that atheists should be more understanding of people's need for religion's comforting delusions.
For this reader, the column never gets out of the utilitarian shallows to consider that religion's fundamental ground might be, not "emotional management," but the question why there is something rather than nothing.
5
Yes! It is patronizing, isn't it.
1
"For this reader, the column never gets out of the utilitarian shallows to consider that religion's fundamental ground might be, not "emotional management," but the question why there is something rather than nothing."
Unfortunately religion does not address this question, either philosophically or empirically, in any substantive way. Postulating the existence of a creator merely pushes the question back a step: one then needs to ask who created the creator.
I think Mr. Asma states his goal very clearly in the article's title: Religion serves a very different purpose than science. I applaud the modest, tractable scope of his argument.
Postulating the existence of a spiritual cause does not "merely push the question back a step" at all. Such postulates say there is an ultimate cause, a prime mover in Aristotle's terms, for the universe. Accepting such postulates is an article of faith, which can never be proven.
Reductionist science says something quite different, that the universe can be fully explained in scientific terms, none of which need be taken on faith and all of which can be proven probabilistically. In terms of ultimate origins, such as whether the Big Bang was an ultimate origin or a punctuation point in an eternal cycle of universal, perhaps multiversal, expansion and contraction, science does not attempt to explain why, but only how.
To say that religion does not address the question why there is something rather than nothing flies in the face of the facts of world religion and philosophy. It must be a great mind, indeed, that can confidently assert that Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, the six "Points of View" schools of Hindu philosophy, and the Buddha, among others in world history, do "not address this question, either philosophically or empirically, in any substantive way."
The quality of the answers various religions and the philosophers and scientists influenced by them have given is certainly open to debate. How one feels about their attempts has at least as much to do with temperament as intellect.
"The heart has its reasons that reason cannot know. Pascal
2
Personally, I have always found organized religion to be oppressive, coercive, and manipulative – and I have chosen to be a happy atheist for the past six plus decades. Having said that, I cannot really argue with the author’s thesis, and if many (most?) people feel better by participating in arcane ceremonies, mostly led by old men wearing funny clothes who are motivated by telling others how to live, that is not my concern. What I detest are sanctimonious, self-righteous, intermeddlers who continuously push THEIR religious beliefs into the public sphere and everyone else’s face, thereby interfering with the Constitutional right to be free FROM religion. I do not care what occurs in churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples – but those places are where religion needs to remain.
3
Don't forget 10% tithe, million dollar aircraft, etc. The tendency to put Man over God or to use "God" to beat down those who are different will always leave a bad taste for many of us.
3
All I can say about this article is to repeat what George Bernard Shaw said about faith: "The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality."
8
When it first started, religion was likely a mechanism for controlling group behavior; soon it became a source of income for the churches. Today, it has maintained its revenue seeking and evolved into a divider people/countries/cultures.
"all this looks irrational, and therefore unacceptable." Much, perhaps most, of life is irrational in the most comprehensive sense of that word. So individuals and groups create their versions of "rationality." Religion at its best is more like the "irrationality" of wisdom since its deepest truths have a basis in the depths of human reality. The problematic perception occurs when religious truth gets short-circuited before reaching its fonts of wisdom. Unfortunately, that short-circuiting happens at both the societal and individual levels, aided by the many claims of secularism and narcissism available in modern life. The parable of the mustard seed in the Gospels is probably a good way to understand religion.
Religion is a human need that helps make many lives better . It is also a fairy tale that helps in difficult circumstances, like telling a child his dead dog will be OK because he is "going to heaven " ! Religion also has a VERY dark side that is tribal . The us & them others that causes bloodshed ! Religion is also forced by the carrot & the stick dogma or heaven to believers & the HELL for the others ! It seems to boil down to an emotional need for comfort despite reality .
1
As I told my son who, as an ageing teenager, wanted to forbid religion: there are people who need it, there are people who manage to better get through life with rules, written by someone else, that they can adhere to. And that is fine, as long as they don’t bother and hurt other people with it!
In fact, I consider it respectless, when persons throw their religion into my face, unsollicited of course, by marking themselves through certain pieces of clothing (exception priests, imams, nuns ... whose professional uniform it is). In other words, religion is your private thing, pray to the God or Prophet you like best and, if somebody is interested in it, they will ask you about it.
5
Magic, mystery, and authority are a perfectly good set of things until used to justify bad behavior as in these fine quotations:
1 / “You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
2 / "With or without it [religion] you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."
7
But what happens when the atheist, tolerant of religion in the manner endorsed here, is also the bereaved seeking solace? Surely s/he is denied such relief even while condescending to those less rational, if more fortunate, souls who avail themselves of their beliefs.
The argument would be far less muddled were Asma to assert the possibility of an atheist such as himself rejecting religious doctrine as irrational while engaging in religious ritual—the action of believing—as entirely rational. But that way leads to doubt, and perhaps genuine reconsideration of the true basis for faith as opposed to the straw-man supposition offered here.
1
Can we please stop labeling religious practice and beliefs as "irrational"? They are NON-RATIONAL because, as the professor points out, they emanate from a part of the brain that does not think in what we consider "rational" in the traditional Enlightenment way, but from the part of the brain that "thinks emotionally", i.e., it feels.
4
You are probably right about the source of the practice and beliefs, but that doesn't mean that it isn't irrational. It certainly seems irrational for Dominionists to destroy "God's creation" in God's honor. So much of what religion does seems utterly irrational in the amount of hatred, anger, despair, violence, etc., it creates, supposedly in the name of love and the glory of the higher aspects of being.
Much religion is also irrational because it was created at a time when we had no scientific answers for the things we experience. Now we do, and yet, religious people reject it for reasons that are irrational. Just because people have a subjective reason for doing something that is non-rational, doesn't mean that their beliefs and behavior aren't objectively irrational.
What religion gives us is the constant threat of mandatory religion. Democracy depends on robust conversation and the process of finding common ground. Faith is the death of conversation and the ratification of supernatural authority. God is anyone who claims to speak for him. That's the whole story.
2
This column is sophistry wrapped in an academic veneer. It recklessly throws around phrases like "the typical atheist" and leaps to subjective conclusions like "feeling well is more important than thinking well" as if they were demonstrably intrinsic to the species. The astonishing thesis of this entire exercise can be summarized as "the irrationality of religion 'does not render it unacceptable, valueless or cowardly' because it soothes and comforts the primitive centers of the human brain".
Irrational dogma wedded to irrational man. Yes, of course, a marriage made in heaven!
Religion is, alas, among the worst and most self-destructive impulses of the human animal. It initially emerged as a response to an inchoate, primitive fear of the unknown. Later it became institutionalized as rigid dogma that largely perverted the teachings of the visionaries who had tried to offer an ethical and moral basis for peaceful, harmonious living.
God was invented in the image of man (selfish, tyrannical, cruel, capricious and vengeful) as a nexus for the simple-minded who were incapable of assimilating complex ideas directly. A priesthood then turned this monstrosity into a justification for murderous atrocities ranging from The Crusades to Jihad, which still plague us today in one form or another.
Religion is a poisonous delusion. It is far more important to live by a valid ethical code than to attempt to purchase some kind of comfort or safety through professions of faith in a fantasy.
8
I am a grieving mother.
I am also an atheist.
Hear me: It's tough enough to be mourning a son dead from lymphoma with all the months and years of warning that science wasn't going to do it this time, than to be adding onto that all of the (conflicting) dogma, of religion's silly puffy-cloud heavenly reward or its shrieking and cowering punishment routine of flayed skin, eternal flames and the eternal damnation of unbaptized babies.....
Seriously?
My son never committed a "sin" that caused his cancer.
It was more likely a crime of illegal dumping committed by a corporation doing a favor for the Mafia that fracked his drinking water.
Perhaps if we had nicer, more humane, more celebratory doctrines and dogmas, then I wouldn't be an atheist, but, truly, there isn't a religion in existence today that doesn't sicken or offend me.
But we don't have nice religions - anywhere.
How tough would that be to come up with a decent religion?
I put that to the test.
I made up a "religion". It took me 2 years.
It was non-transcendent. Non-hierarchical.
Adored Constitutions.
Loved education. And sex. Valued the individual. Valued family. Valued the specific land mass of a nation.
Was democratic socialist with a side of personal capitalism and ALL natural resources were held in common.
What an excellent religion! I could almost live with it!
And everyone overpaid their taxes every year!
Naw. It never had to be this way.
There is better out there.
Accept no substitutions, people.
6
What religion gives us that science can't? Invisible fairies in the sky.
4
News flash: Crutches help those who stumble. And, no, no one ever expected science to console. The Stone is such a waste of a column. My college kid writes better philosophy.
4
Welcome to Sodom! Its where the party is at and I dont see anyone being turned to salt!
1
I liked this article. I read it right after reading an essay, "How poetry saved my life," by Nancy Miller Gomez. She had worked with prisoners to write poetry together and share it. These men were able to write words that let them cry in front of other men. Nancy confesses that her previous work as a producer of "reality" TV was a way to tell lies for the sake of a good story. The world chips away at truth until we have alternative truth, which isn't truth at all. Life is tough for those with bodies that grow old and die, but only after decaying for decades. We need each other to console ourselves through life's struggles. I see the contradictions in religion all the time. The mix of different God's in every service where readings are from an old testament and a new. An irrational trinity, you name it. But religion is also a way to gather people around a table like the campfire of old and share stories. And having been around "rational" scientists, I know some do irrational things like smoke, or take up drumming (Richard Feynman) or are moved by music--rational in its structure but emotional in its effects. Moreover, you can be a scientist or engineer and still a racist or bigot. There is no universal salvation in religion or science. Kindness is something we all have to work at to achieve friendships and personal growth.
1
My mother and father were not "religious", but had a very strong belief in being kind to our fellow human beings and other life forms. This provided us with the personal strength that might have come from a religion or religious belief.
It meant reaching out to people without considering what group they represented, but focusing instead on their need.
This is emotional support for all.
2
This is a good article as far as it goes, but it's missing one important epistemological ingredient. The fact is that atheists don't know that the vision of some sort of life after death is categorically wrong. I understand that it is apparently not consistent with a common-sensical interpretation of the empirical sense experience we have. But any intellectually honest participant in such discussions must admit that there is a doubt about these profound questions, and it is in that area of doubt that religion can operate. I am a physicist, and one of my most profound religious experiences was when I really "grocked" the idea of quantum mechanics. If our understanding (the classical, Newtonian understanding) of the simple mechanics of the physical world can be so wrong, how much more must we be skeptical of statements concerning more weighty and complex issues such as the issue of life after death, or immortality of the soul. (For the record, I don't buy the idea of the immortality of the soul the way it's usually framed, but I do understand that I cannot be certain about that.) And therein lies the epistemic permission for much of religious belief and practice. Both religious and non-religious people proclaiming their positions on issues of belief and practice would do well to remember the fundamental uncertainty underlying their positions.
5
This explains Trumps appeal and the loyalty of his followers. His implicit message is that the cognitive mind (which fosters analysis, compassion, golden rule based behavior etc) is just political correctness whereas the emotional mind (which fosters hatefulness, jealousy, anger, etc) is just you being you. Which is why to a Trump supporter facts don’t matter. It’s a belief.
3
Great theory if only the religious brain could separate that idea from the nonsensical, magical thinking has to be shared with the world or else they must ostracize or, at worst, kill us. But, I disagree that religion is proof it helped this person get over their grief. The mother could have been helped in other ways. My mother was very religious and when her only son committed suicide, religion didn't help her at all. She sought out other ways to help herself deal with his death. My being an atheist helped me accept my father's death as being a permanent state even though I long for him to still be here. The mother in this example might have been able to accept reality if given the chance but she was already accepting of a fantasy story. I think that is the sadder alternative.
3
This opinion piece is silly. Is the author really a serious academic researcher? Science doesn’t claim to offer consolation to the grieving; pointing out that it fails to do so is akin to observing that chocolate cake doesn’t make a very good screwdriver. Non-religious philosophies of life such as Stoicism and others can also provide great comfort and frameworks for emotional support, without the massive downside of asking us to believe things that are manifestly untrue. But perhaps a self-appointed scorekeeper in a nonsensical binary contest between Science and Religion is more likely to sell books?
5
Interesting thoughts from the author. A side-note:
His quote, "Most religious beliefs are not true. But here’s the crux. The emotional brain doesn’t care" fits the Trump voter perfectly. Trump's lies/exaggerations don't bother them because they sooth their own emotions about how they wish the world should be. Scary.
3
I think that the triune brain "kludge" is not supported by current neuroscience.
1
Wow, what a long straw man argument! No one is saying that religion cannot comfort the afflicted and that science provides emotional support during grieving (although I suppose that's possible for some).
The argument against religion is when it insists on replacing science and reason. It's not God's will that the planet is heating up. It's not God's will when a teenager gets shot. Those are due to the actions of people. "God's will" is easily used as an abdication of responsibility and with our current EPA, as a cudgel to allow a few people to profit by the destruction of God's creation (not that I believe that the earth is God's creation, but for God's sake, they should at least be consistent).
God didn't create human beings exactly as they are, evolution led to people and we're a work in progress. So, fine, let religion do its good works, such as they are, but keep it away from politics and science and our schools. And let's not let religion usurp the responsibilities we have to each other as a society (case in point: education).
Religions are like the male genitalia. It's fine to have one and to enjoy it, but a line is crossed when you start waving it around in public and insist that everyone else abide by or worship whatever power you ascribe to it.
5
In addittion, Religions provide a set of Moral and Ethical principles that are key to a good life and in general, oriented to charithy and love to others, key also to built a better world.
Thank you very much for this excelent article.
Really? I find that evangelical Christianity, fundamentalist Islam, etc., are not oriented to charity and a good life. In fact, behind much of the violence, strife, dissension, etc., of the world is religion. From where I sit, religion has some good things to offer, but is a net negative to humanity, with millions dead or suffering because of it. Christianity, especially, is problematic because it makes people assume that their difficulties in life are deserved because they are sinners, rather than have them look at the social, racial, gender,
and economic bases for inequality, injustice, etc.
Religion is not always the opiate of the people. The peasants of Germany who revolted around the time of Luther had religious inspiration. But Luther and the Church managed to put this revolt down, since it threatened both of them. But being an, or the, opiate of the people is a constant danger for religions, a dimension that the state will use to seduce and corrupt them; fighting against this danger pits them against the state in a struggle they can lose in the obvious way or by winning and becoming or taking over the state.
Religion is always prone to such abuse; the abuse is not inevitable but is a constant danger to which particularly organized religion usually succumbs. One does not need to reject religion to recognize the validity of the criticism and take action to keep the state at arms length. Religion should struggle to keep itself from being used as an opioid, but most do not, and instead welcome the safety and comfort of working together with the state to keep believers and citizens docile and loyal.
1
Religion is not all or nothing, magical thinking or atheism. I attend a church that accepts doubters, because really, most of us are whether we say so or not. But my church gives me a place to go every Sunday where I know everyone there is on a journey to try to love, themselves and others. We support each other well (I received 9 weeks of meals when I went in to early labor), and we support our community fixing up houses that belong to people who are disabled, take youth who are homeless shopping for new clothes, invite low income high school students to have their hair and make up done for free before the prom. We raise awareness of human traffiking, send money for disaster relief....I could go on...This community loved my kids when they were middle schoolers and feeling awkward, but at church felt seen and respected. I could go on. But I have NO idea what will happen to me after I die, NONE. I do know my church helps me experience God here on earth. Believing the stories of the bible as fact is superfluous. I have seem a glimpse of depth of LOVE, been able to give, received and be in awe of it. That is enough for me.
5
There is no fundamental tension between science and religion other than the intrusion and rejection of science by religion. Of course humans are strongly affected by basic natural passions. And any belief system and ritual that helps to moderate and regulate the passions is helpful - to both individuals and society. But religion is not the only way. Many sages have described methods based on reason, instead of religion, to achieve both moral conduct and passion regulation. The ancient eastern traditions of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. The western Epicurean and Stoic philosophies. The modern age of enlightenment from Bacon and Spinoza to Kant and Voltaire.
In an enlightened free society every person is can believe and engage in any ritual they choose. The problem is that every religious institution has sought to impose it's own beliefs and code of conduct on everybody else. Even when societies manage to create a legal separation of state and religion - the religious push to impose their codes on the rest of us, by any means!
3
I understand that religion can be a great comfort and I am glad of that. But for me it is not at all believable and I cannot make that "leap of faith." Some people only do the right thing for fear of eternal punishment; I believe we can choose the good, to do the right thing, for the sake of goodness itself, and not for fear of any god or gods. I think all we really need as a society is the Golden Rule - that's the thing that could give us all happiness, not the magical thinking of religious dogma.
2
A couple of points
1. Why praise religion specifically, and not the more inclusive, all-encompassing spirituality? This column is predicated on religion providing emotional security and comfort, but does not spiritual belief of any kind do the same thing? Why the distinction between organized faith and individual or less-hierarchical belief systems? If a mother can overcome the death of her grieving child through her 'beliefs', whatever they may be, is that not the point?
2. Overlooked in this piece, or perhaps sidestepped, are the other things religion gives us. Sectarian/tribal divisions and conflict, celebration and encouragement of falsehoods, restriction on individual freedoms, derision for being a 'nonbeliever', etc. If you assert the need for religion, you must consider all aspects of it, not merely the good or desirable.
I don't believe emotional placebos justify belief systems that beget violence, suffering, ignorance, etc. We ought to encourage more humane belief systems, which promote inclusion, compassion and respect. One does not need a hidden, omnipotent, deity to see the beauty in life and others, to take solace in the wonder of our existence, and to spread kindness and joy to all they meet. That is innately human, nothing more.
2
With your arguments that religion is valuable beyond any rationality, what is left for anyone to argue against it? Clearly religious belief makes some people feel better, although it is not clear that religion is the only way to accomplish this. But if one has to weigh the value vs the detriment of religious belief overall, it is easy to come down on the side against it.
1
That the writer simply assumes the irrationality of religious conviction is perhaps the weakest part of his critique. The fact that absolutely brilliant scientific minds (think Newton for example) have found the Judeo-Christian tradition to be comprehensively rational should cause him at least some pause. Surely his humanist rationalistic sensibilities can point out what he perceives as the irrationality of a parted Red Sea or of a resurrected Jesus but internally both are supremely rational events. But in today's climate where supposed evangelicals have capitulated to the horror story that is Trump and the televangelists continue to pump out prosperity garbage in the guise of the gospel, one cannot complain that people seek the elimination of "religion."
Religion is the great divider. It is exclusive, not inclusive unless you wish to join a particular sect. While I agree that anyone should be allowed to believe, or not believe in a god, or a spirit in their own way, it should never be forced on anyone else. Science is fact based, religion is psychological and emotion based. The two should never be confused as their products are the antithesis of one another. It is unfortunate that religion feels compelled to get in the way of science, technology and politics to force itself upon those who don't believe, or don't care.
1
The gullible march on to their man in the sky (or spirit in the grass, or whatever) looking on and giving a flying flap about us. Puh-LEEZE. Religion has always functioned as a political instrument, either for regressive repression or occasionally for liberation and progress.
It seems Professor Asma is confessing to having experienced metanoia.
Now there is the secular meaning of metanoia: "a transformative change of heart; especially : a spiritual conversion." (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/metanoia)
And there is the religious meaning of metanoia: "repentance, a change of mind, change in the inner man." (http://biblehub.com/greek/3341.htm)
3
"For the sake of human progress, the best thing we could possibly do would be to diminish, to the point of eliminating, religious faiths.”
Oh so true.....
3
A reason, a rationalization, to kill. Science can only provide a method.
William James said it best when he talked about religion's only real value as a "moral holiday." If you believe some other (transcendent) force is ultimately responsible for everything, then you can, as James says, take your moral holiday and "let the world wag" in its own way. But that value wasn't enough for James to welcome the absolutist structure that comes with religion and it shouldn't be for us today. When you weigh the actual human suffering religion has caused (sex scandals, wars, discrimination, etc.) the feel-good value starts to pale in comparison.
1
I'm not sure I get the point of the article - that we should suspend our logic and skepticism and just go ahead and believe so that we'll feel better? It comes down to this: either you believe in a supernatural being or you don't. If you do, you might have some vague idea of what that means, but no specific tenets or rituals associated with that belief, just an idea that there must be something more...or perhaps you believe in one of the collective versions, let's say, that an eternal, all powerful god would create the heavens and earth, then demand his creation worship him, punish those who don't, only reveal himself to a single individual, who then tells the rest of the world what we need to do to be granted access to "heaven," and includes a bunch of do's and don't s, like not eating meat on Friday, washing of your feet, praying a specific amount of times per day, etc.
The latter is what I mean when I refer to "religion," i.e., groups of people buying into a specific mythology, insisting their version is the only true version and disdaining those who believe otherwise. This has led to truly horrifying consequences and I'm sorry, but the comforting idea that it'll all be better in the afterlife does not outweigh all the atrocities that have been perpetrated in the name of religion.
1
What strikes me about this article is that it reads like a note from a parent granting permission to its holder to believe in God. Imagine someone writing as many words trying to convince you that your favorite flavor of ice cream is good. Wouldn't that strike you as odd? I mean, why isn't ice cream being "good" enough? Why must you be convinced that what you are already enjoying tastes good?
Belief in God, as opposed to the belief we are spiritual beings, is an antagonistic stand against one's fellow man; after all, you are not what you are because you think it ONE way to God, but because you believe it to be THE WAY to God; else, you would switch to what you deemed the better Road. So, you are not Catholic because you believe Protestants are equal in their faith but the exact opposite (imagine what I am saying BETWEEN faiths); then, each believing himself to be God's favorite child, you sit down at your tables in congresses around the wonder and wonder like Rodney King, "Why can't we all just get along?" The answer, Dear Rodney, is that we're too busy clubbing each other to death with our cudgeled gods.
2
I think a more useful way to discuss this subject is to talk about not "religion" but about "religious experience," which for any individual of faith is at the very heart of the matter and most central to their life. It still puzzles me how little we hear about the brilliant series of lectures delivered by the "father of American pyschology" himself, William James, at the University of Edinburgh at the beginning of the 20th century. James was a scientist who, through curiosity and I suppose some humility, managed to frame the reported religious experience of individuals as completely worthy of acceptance and respect. The traditional critiques of the institutions of organized religion are probably just as true as ever, but that part of the discussion is really only a distraction for anyone wanting to experience a realm that is quite distinct from the world of science, but as the Dalai Lama unequivocally states, one that is by no means mutually exclusive. For some excellent insights into the "science of contemplative mind," Matthieu Ricard, who abandoned a promising career as a biologist to become a Buddhist monk, provides them.
1
This is a truly great article. For me, it softens the impact of atheism that I have embraced for the past 10 years. Yes, religion is irrational, but at moments in my life I miss its balm. In a way, I’m in a nether world. Having become a firm non-believer, I have to remind myself at times that no spiritual intervention is going to change things. If only.
2
Professor Asma is setting up a bit of a false dichotomy here. I don't believe many atheists argue that science is the answer to the problem of grief or despair in the face of death. Science answers questions about the natural world that religion once sought to explain (e.g. where people come from, why that flood happened, and so forth). Asma is right that the structures of religion--the community, the rituals--are hard to replace and that the concept of an afterlife, however wishful, can be comforting. But to imply that Bill Nye or Neil deGrasse Tyson would seek to comfort a grieving mother with scientific theories is silly and unfair. Atheists are still human beings, capable of respond to tragedy with compassion, love, and, yes, emotion.
2
As with all institutions in our world, it is so easy to judge negatively from the outside. Faith (as opposed to religion) must be experienced. That means taking an active, inquisitive role in its tenets and practices. This applies to whatever path you choose to explore: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, etc. Until you have made the effort yourself, you will never glimpse what a journey of faith is about. Does this make you a bad person? Not especially.
2
I am grateful for the author's decent effort to put a shine on the value of religious experience, but he is an outsider looking in. For someone like me, who lives deeply within religious reality, he sounds solemn, patronizing, and a little silly. I don't need the pretensions of neuroscience to validate a personal/social reality three quarters of the world's population take for granted. The number of non-believers is growing and it probably should. The measure some use to live a full life is like using a highway map to explain the richness and beauty of a countryside. A faint outline of the real thing.
1
The author himself states that the it typically isn't the religion itself that comforts, but the connection with other humans. And that is the point that Marx makes as well. Human beings don't need a supernatural conduit to other humans that are capable of offering comfort and community. A humanist culture that is both rational and compassionate can accomplish the same end without the need to embrace the failings that religion is so famous for. We don't have to tolerate jihadism, clergy abuse, or faith-based racism simply to get comfort and community from our fellow human beings. We can do better.
1
Pretty standard. Of course religion has a place-to think otherwise is to give far too much credit to the rational nature of human thinking. However its "place" depends on the individual. Some need the solace that belief can bring in the face of the kind of emotional trauma described, others don't- they understand and, to some degree accept, the contingent nature of their existence.
Beyond support in times of grief religion provides other benefits if one accepts its irrational basis. The sense of community with those who share a value system is of inestimable importance for some. And for many people there is a loss of moral direction without the specific guide of religion. I suspect that some religions (Judaism and Islam in particular) developed primarily as law giving institutions in societies without developed secular law. God acts in the roles of legislature- ordering law, judiciary- judging law breakers and executive- executing the punishment for law breaking.
Religion also has another important role historically, one that is increasingly replaced by science -the explanation of the inexplicable. God ordained that things are the way they are. No need for evolution or other "theories"- it is all written down in some book and that is all one needs to know.
2
My sister’s only child died of bone cancer last year. In the last stages of her illness, paralyzed and disintegrating, she took to staring into space. A nurse asked her if she saw anything. She said she was seeing children playing in a field, that she saw that all the time now. She died a peaceful, and thanks to medication painless death. I thought of the Greek Elysian fields, and the ancient Egyptian Field of Reeds of Osiris, and even the images of Death as fields in the movie The Lovely Bones. Without adhering to a specific religion, I think there are natural mental processes within us that go beyond the rational. Maybe religion at its best helps us to access these processes. My sister and her husband have been much helped by the rituals and beliefs of their religion.
3
My father was a minister. For many decades he conducted burial services, preaching about life beyond. Then his wife, my mother died. He told me that he found the words he had preached didn't console him. What did was the presence of another human being (also a minister) who was willing to sit with him, listen to him, and empathize with, be present with, his grief.
There are many ways to address our ultimate demise or that of those we love. Yes religion can offer a way, but so can others. In this case loving human contact.
4
I have no objection to people finding comfort and solace wherever they can, including in their faith in invisible beings. I strenuously object, however, to having any religion used in shaping and/or deciding public policy.
4
Surely the only reason to believe in something is that there is compelling evidence that it is true. I have no doubt that religion can provide solace to some people in times of trouble, but that doesn't mean that it is true.
3
Religion as a placebo? Even when harmless, it's still trickery.
3
If it feels real, then it is real. Overwhelming fears suffered by a person with anxiety may not be real or true, but they FEEL real. And what's the harm in belief and religious rituals if it makes one feel better? The harm occurs when one, or a group, uses religion to take away from another. At the end of the day, we all (the religious, the atheists, and then each individual religion) all need to learn to better coexist. Surely, that's unlikely to occur in the near term on any large scale. So instead, I challenge all reading this to apply this awareness in your own lives. Maybe don't judge someone who is practicing a religion while you don't; maybe don't judge someone who practices a religion different from yours; maybe don't judge those who do not subscribe to the concept of God. Maybe we could all, day to day, be a little more accepting.
1
I would ask this author if he has read Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" and what he thinks of it. Change is hard, no doubt about it. But we must adapt to survive. We've done it before, and we must do it again. The children of today can grow up to be the adults of tomorrow who haven't been brainwashed by religion their whole lives, and who can find solace in something else to survive - family, community, activity, the very concept of "nature," which can often to our sensibilities be cruel, but is also the source of all life.
Religion has been responsible for some of the worst wholesale slaughters in the history of mankind. Today - it still claims pride of place for more killing and subjugations than any other 'movement' we could name.
The author seem to revere a theoretical religious ethos that has never actually existed in practice or in history. If anyone wants to read the ultimate genealogy of religious morality then look no further than Nietzsche's famous work - On the Genealogy of Morality.
"The truly great haters in the world history have always been priests; likewise the most ingenious haters: other kinds of spirit hardly come into consideration when compared with the spirit of priestly vengefulness." Essay 1 Sect 7
1
I was raised in a mainstream protestant church, but drifted away first from organized religion and then from religion itself to arrive at atheism. I have no quarrel with religious beliefs or religious people and, in fact, sometimes envy them their faith in higher powers. Now at 80 years old with adult children and grandchildren busy with their own lives far away I am considering returning to a church for a community of people nearby. When I put my thoughts down like this they sound pretty selfish, though. Should I take advantage of the kindness of their community when I do not believe in their organization's raison d'tre?
1
Yes.
I, too, was raised in a mainstream protestant church, and drifted away - although my journey never dropped me at the door of atheism. In my 40's, I returned to church and now, at 65, the comfort and friendships and community and both spiritual and intellectual stimulation I find there are profound. I'm sure not all churches or religious bodies would welcome someone who doesn't sign on the dotted line that they accept their dogma - kind of like accepting cookies from a website, I guess. But at the church I attend (United Methodist), no one is quizzed about anything at all. All truly are welcome.
The Times seems to be dependent on people pushing their latest book, regardless of content. This absurd (and I use the word precisely) abstract is just one more puff piece. Of course the majority of comments about something this weak will be scathing; I suspect that the logic would be condemned even in some Christian house organs.
The answer to the title question is eternal: Suppression of free will and knowledge. War and slavery.
3
Bingo.
1
There are at least three major problems with the author's perspective. First, the therapeutic effects of religion are not obtain for free, they come at a high cost, typically involving many other beliefs that are not only false but harmful. One of these (for Abrahamic religions at least) derives from God's evident absence in the world, which necessitates direction and interpretation of what God wants us to do from religious experts. This creates a structure of epistemic power the consequences of which we are all familiar with.
Second, the author states that religion is helpful if one sees it as primarily therapeutic. The problem is that many people throughout the world see it as much more, including as a perspective that categorically commands one to observe strict gender roles, to ostracize those with unconventional sexual orientations, or to shun members of other religions.
Finally, what of the young widow who never marries because she would be unable to face her dead husband in heaven if she remarries? Or what about those who will presumably spend eternity in mental anguish knowing that their atheist son or daughter is doomed to hell?
2
The comfort religion has given us: The Crusades, The Inquisition, The Holocaust, the bond of primitive tribalism, The rejection of reason and Suicide bombers
- to name a few. How comforting!
2
What I glean from this opinion piece is that one can find solace, comfort, support, etc., in religion, especially in religious settings in which comfort and support is given by others in attendance. The other parts of religion - supernatural, miracles, and so on - is not the important part. I do not see why having close friends, family, etc. do not provide the same needed support. This removes one from having to participate with organized religion which historically is so associated with bigotry, violence, superiority, and on and on. Where's the comfort in that?
1
Last week I attended a shiva (Jewish mourning ceremony) at the home of a good friend following the death of his elderly mother. He is an atheist, as am I. The event brought together friends and family to console the living and honor the deceased. And to eat (always a consolation in itself). But it was really a secular affair -- no rabbi was there and no prayers were said. But it worked.
Religion may offer some consolation to believers in trying times, and that's fine. But to an atheist it's not going to do much good at all, and may be counterproductive. In fact, anyone trying to push some afterlife crap on me when I'm grieving is just going to make me mad. I get annoyed enough when someone says "everything happens for a reason. "
So maybe the social benefits of religion without the magical nonsense will evolve in some way as to benefit our culture as we become more secular. Perhaps religious ritual can provide a framework that can console or otherwise benefit a rational, secular being, without the bull. The secular shiva event at my friend's house is an example.
But for the most part, and for the foreseeable future, we rational thinkers will just have to rely on family, friends, wine, pills, the usual distractions, and shrinks. Actually, I'm okay with that.
4
I believe that what Mr. Asma is describing as being a tonic to our brain is Faith. Not religion. The former, namely the belief in something greater than ourselves can be comforting, therapeutic, helpful, and even salutary. The latter is pure silliness.
I don't to go to church every Sunday to look at some man dressed in red and gold gesturing about an altar , or sing, speak in tongue, or waive my arms around. Nor do I need to kneel on a carpet five times a day facing Mecca, or go to a synagogue and repeat some five thousand year old gibberish at nausea. This is organized religion, which is nothing more than a business and brain washing machine preying on people's fear of death. It is the oldest con in the world.
Faith. however, is something else. I don't feel silly in believing in a higher power (and I am an engineer, used to dealing with facts). I keep it to myself, and if I need to call for help from above, I do it in the comfort of wherever I am, alone and discreetly. It helps me, and that's the only thing that counts.
However, I am still debating what kind of after life I would prefer. Live forever in paradise? I don't think so. I would have to take much better care of myself and I like the earth better. Paradise with 72 virgins? Please spare me. I have been married twice and the thought of dealing with more than two doesn't seem very appealing. I am leaning towards reincarnation. Maybe as dog in my household. They have a hell of a good life.
2
Finally a comment i can give a recommendation to. My husband wanted to come back as a spoiled, much loved feline. A year after his death a cat entered into my life. No, i don't believe this cat holds the spirit of my husband, but when i pet and feed this very spoiled, much loved cat and who generously gives back that love, i do think of my husband and at times he seems very close. Probably my imagination or some kind of communication i don't yet understand.
1
Take out the invisible, judgmental, sadistic deity, the carrot and stick (AKA heaven and hell) and the divisiveness of one sect being more or less legitimate than another, crazy adventures like the Crusades, the thirty years war, the inquisition and the politicians that use religion as a weapon, and maybe you have a little something going for your column.
But then I think you could do just as well with a good "shrink".
3
Unconditional love for each other is the greatest support we can offer each other in times of pain, when solace is needed.
We don't need imaginary concepts of Heaven (and inevitably) Hell, virtue and sin, around which to build "communities of support".
In the words of McCartney & Lennon, all we need is love.
2
Interesting article. I agree with the the premise that the need for religion comes from deep inside our brains. But when it comes to defending the practice, I cannot bring myself to that place.
When I was a child I would see a hot road and thought I saw a puddle in the distance. I kept expecting to run over the puddle but it never came. As I got older and it was explained that this "puddle" was just heat waves distorting the light, I stopped believing there was water in the road. When I saw the illusion, I had an explanation and that was a better substitute for my fairy tale.
As a species, we have pretty much figured out "enough" to explain our reality. I am not claiming we have every piece of the puzzle, but if you follow science, you know the big picture of the origins of the universe, evolution, brain and body functions, etc. This, combined with the inexplicable absence of any concrete manifestation of "God" pretty much seals the deal for me (and I suspect the majority of science-aware folks, if they can admit it).
Defending religion because it is "comforting"? I agree, it is hugely comforting to our hominid brain. But I believe it is also a hugely malevolent force in the world and we should rise above it. Time to stop sucking our thumbs.
2
Not for anything, I am sure that before established religions flourished, human beings were consoling each other through losses without the aid of faith. Today’s organized religions are both good and bad in many ways but to say faith helps is somewhat disingenuous. There are those below arguing that their religious beliefs are true because they cannot be proven false. It is this that sustains people in most religions. If in fact they were able proven to be false, then people would be mad as hell at being duped. Religious faiths count on that fr their validation. But the truth is anything can be a deemed a religion. One can make up almost anything to console oneself with through lives trials. This normally all depends on ones parents as to what you choose to believe. So one cannot assume that if all religions go away that there will be no mechanism with which to console a grieving person. That like religion is just not, at this point, provable.
You see religion as benignly irrational, it looks to some as severely dishonest.
To heighten the point of differences in the ideals, look at the national mottos of two major democracies: one claims that the Truth exclusively and always triumphs ; the other proclaims - in God we trust. Just show me where the word God is mentioned in the original constitution.
Godlessness has hope, while godful people will still stay busy administering killing of apostates while weaponizing instruments of brutality such as fatwas. blasphemy, horny clergy and abstinence for the masses.
1
As cosmic genius Stephen Hawking has said: "Religion is fairy tales for adults." And the pain, grief and death that we experience while riding on this planet made of rocks, dirt, mud, sand, water and air that is spinning through space at 73,000 miles per hour don't care about us and are illusions just like our fairy tales. But to make ourselves feel better we give fortunes to religious organizations who tell us that we are probably all going to Hell anyway. What a deal. Sounds like something Trump would love to sell.
4
Most established religions are built on a lie. If believing in that lie or illusion brings you certainty and comfort (or, better, makes you a more ethical, kind person), more power to you.
There will only be a problem if you claim that you’re better than me, or that I’ll burn in Hell forever (or you’ll kill me) if I don’t accept your particular deity or prophet.
Accepting that certain mysteries of beauty and evil will never be fully solved, always trying to do the right thing, and striving to know the truth and achieve wisdom are all enough for me.
1
Most religious people aquire their religious beliefs from their parents. They are born into a world of beliefs that at the end of the day are just that, beliefs. There are multiple different religious beliefs, some of which are uplifting and others of which are cruel and even murderous. For some it is a business or a scam. This is indisputable reality. Everyone can't be right about religion, so no conclusions are offered. Until all people, reliogous or not, have love and respect for other human beings, religious or not, we will continue to suffer the the evil along with the good. I don't expect to see a resolution of what a wise high school teacher referred to as cock sure ignorance!
1
I thought this was well written, but I remain unconvinced “that we still need religion”. Religion promotes unquestioning faith, wishful thinking and self deception. Science has no truck for such childish believes. Science questions and requires good evidence.
As to Stephen Asma’s assertion that religion is effective at pain management, I imagine that Meth is also fairly good at pain management but at a terrible price that most people endeavor to avoid. I think religion has a terrible price too. It divides us and sows strife. It retards curiosity with all its answers from a divine being. It encourages and often demands surrender of the mind. Loss of free thought and shattering the world into competing hated tribes seems to me to be too steep a cost for occasionally easing the pain of death. I’m with Dr. Sagan.
“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” Carl Sagan
3
There is a one-word disproof of Mr. Asma's claims in this unfortunate "ethical" column.
Hell.
1
The idea of eternal life is a double-edged sword. Of course, many people are haunted by the fear of Hell, despite the concept being in theological decline. Beyond that, though, the idea of eternal awareness is disturbing to many regardless of fear of punishment. The idea that everything happens for a reason has similar power to disturb as much as console.
Delusion. This is what religion can give us. Faith in made up stories with absolutely no factual basis. Sure they works. Why would they not? Why do you think religions who promise hell or oblivion for everybody have very little following? Tell parents that they will see their dead child again in heaven and of course, if they believe you, they will feel much better. Nothing to do with Science and especially Reason.
There is no invisible man in the sky, although he works in mysterious ways. Religion is for morons who want to live forever. Enjoy your life now. We kill for god. But he gave his only begotten son so that all you idiots will die for the man-who is the church which worships gold. OH, where was he a t Auschwitz. The Russian army saved the day, not the holy father.
When my wife was diagnosed with a virulent brain cancer several years ago - glioblastoma, from which there is virtually no chance of recovery - I was comforted by my atheism and she by her deeply felt religious belief.
I knew that nature, although red in tooth and claw, was not ruled by a malevolent or careless deity bent on teaching us humans to suffer gracefully and without complaint.
My wife went forward with graceful acceptance.
When her diagnosis was revised to that of brain lymphoma - with a survival rate of nearly 50% - neither of us changed our beliefs or lack of them. Five years on, she believes that God saved her life, at least in part, as an answer to prayer. I, on the other hand, remain pretty strongly convinced that the year of intense chemo provides a more thorough answer. Mais à chacun son goût.
The problems arise not from God giving comfort to people in need, which is something no compassionate person, atheist or not, would object to (including Dawkins, Wilson, etc., who are not the shallow, doctrinaire idiots Asma describes), but from God giving instructions to the political leadership of the religion to destroy nonbelievers, deny science, preach hate, and promulgate shallow, manipulative beliefs.
Religions create atheists when they are intellectually dishonest and corrupt. The deep and pure feelings of religionists and the deep and pure feelings of scientists and nonbelievers and not fundamentally in conflict or mutually exclusive. We are all living in the same incomprehensible universe, all seeking meaning and comfort and truth.
It may be difficult for a nonbeliever like me to explain the peace and joy I feel knowing that, no matter what happens after death, I and everyone I love will always be a part of the fabric of the universe - there being, basically, nowhere else for whatever it is I am to go.
Here's what I, an antitheist, have to say: Please shut up.
Why can't you just quietly believe in whatever you want to believe in? Why do you have to talk about it? Why do you need churches -- can't you pray without buddies or garish accessories?
Why can't you all just shut up?
1
So....religion is the opiate of the masses?
1
In lieu of sententious, superstitious or didactic diatribe, Stephen T. Asma writes brilliantly.
"Religion is the awe in which we hold our ignorance"
Professor Solomon L. Schwebel
can be said of most any thing--chicago versus new york pizza, instructors at higher education institutions, most any thing...
The author commits the usual white privilege writing mistakes. A black guy is on the list of disapproved people. And as far as I can tell the only two blacks mentioned are listed last in each sequence. How come whites almost always do that schtick?
There is no such thing as god Religion is a scam Get over it There are ways to cope with grief that do not need a magical man in the sky
2
As a card-carrying atheist I've had the opportunity of debating believers many times. This the first time that the argument is put forth that religion is irrational, therefore perhaps not event true, but still useful because it can bring comfort to those who suffer and grieve.
The primary aim of organized religions such as Christianity. Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, etc. is to maintain the social hierarchy wherein those who are already in power get to maintain that power whether they deserve to or not. As such, religion has brought untold grief to humanity, and E. O. Wilson is right to say that religion must end as soon as possible. My heart goes out to the grieving mother I and hope she can find the desire to go on living some other way. But teaching children that death is not death and that lustful thoughts will lead them to hell, worse, that dying while killing infidels is an assurance eternal bliss is too high of a price to pay.
1
Wake up Stephen Asma to reality!
There have been 3000 known civilizations throughout history, and ALL of them have had a religion, regarding a higher Authority, after life, etc.,, except for one, the Soviet Union that tried to eliminate religion for 70 yrs, and failed miserably.
Like physical hunger and thirst, 'religion' is ingrained in the human heart, and cannot be forced out by mere rational arguments...
Case in point, the story Asma shares...
Wake up erudite Stephen; some day YOU too will be faced with the need for God and eternal life.. and hope it is not too late!
What a ridiculous point. This is an argument for the necessity of war, rape, pillage, cruelty, ignorance, prostitution, theft, misogyny, racism, wanton violence, hunger, sacrifice and yes, blind belief in sky gods and demons. Always been there in every human society, so they must be intrinsically necessary or useful. They must be part of us. You need to wake up. Human history is the process of eliminating idiocies and realities and superstitions, one by one.. and it is finally working. Religions are disappearing rapidly for. The developed earth, and remain only where ignorance still holds sway. But by your lights you should be out there sacrificing cattle to the gods of thunder..
Mr. Asma cites the story of the young man whose family was comforted by the belief they would all be together in heaven one day.
There was a time not long ago. In fact in my lifetime when a person who committed suicide was condemned by the Catholic Church, refused funeral services, and the family made to believe that the departed was condemned to the fires of hell for all eternity.
That's the problem with the Church's teachings about an afterlife. It can and has been played both ways, both comforting and terrifying the latter of which has been used for thousands of years to control and manipulate.
1
What a nothing, uninspired argument. A philosophy professor is essentially arguing the value of living a lie. Didn't both Socrates and Jesus talk about the power of the truth?
The simple fact is we have no idea what happens after we die. None. Zero. Zilch. Our brains aren't capable of understanding how the Earth is less than a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth the mass of this galaxy which is only one of hundreds of billions of galaxies. We can't comprehend what existed before the universe.
It is not easy living with such uncertainty, but it is the only dignified approach rather than create nonsensical explanations of things beyond our understanding. Community is valuable and love and hope. But these things need to come from a truthful place, not a fairy tale. There may well be a God. But no organized religion can begin to explain her existence.
2
Find a way to stop religion from being weaponized in the service of evil and stupidity, then let’s talk.
1
Nobody needs religion. Spare me the nonsense that religion spouts. The world would be far better off without it.
1
This is a silly article. Why bring in murder? Grief counseling, psychotherapy, and law might be used here to aid in suffering. Religion is based on myths written down in literature. That's what it is. Religion becomes poison when it is used in arguments as the author does. Surprising nonsense from a professor. Get with it prof. Let go of your diapers, and try on adult clothing.
If You Cherish Democracy, You Should Value Religion
I just finished reading a book I would highly recommend to anyone who cherishes democracy. God of Liberty written by Thomas Kidd, a professor at Baylor University, recounts the significant role that religion played in uniting colonists during the American Revolution of 1775 and in the subsequent formation of American democracy.
Reading this book, I was reminded of the Founding Fathers’ conviction that only if a nation’s citizens and its leaders embraced public virtue could a nation hope to preserve good government. Public virtue included honesty, self-sacrifice, and good will towards others. Our Founding Fathers’ firmly believed that religion provided the foundation on which public virtue was built.
“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness—these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. …and let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion.”
-- from George Washington’s Farewell Address 1796
religion does not necessarily equal public virtue. constitutionally, we make allowances for systems of belief given the assumption that these might inoculate our public spaces with public virtue. as evidenced by some of the evangelical support to the publicly unvirtuous, that assumption may not be valid....
When you shut off your brain and suspend logic and reason, it's a slippery slope...
Twain had it right, "believing what you know ain't so."
1
I grew up Baptist, later became Methodist, and am now agnostic. I do sometimes, particularly around Christmas, miss the ritual, the music, and the sense of community. However, in the end, I could no longer overlook the the tribalism of religion, the we’re right and going to heaven and those “other” people are wrong and going to hell. I could no longer overlook the violence done in the name of religion. I could no longer reconcile the suffering in the world with the concept of an omnipotent, loving god. Better, I think, that we accept our own mortality. Better that we stop killing each other over who worships the right god. Better that we reject the sexism and homophobia that are so prevalent in many major religions. Better that we work together now to reduce suffering and poverty and disease and violence, not to please the deity of our choice, but because of our shared humanity.
But, I still miss the hymns.
Now, in the twenty-first century with the first signs of our possible extinction at hand, we are being called to challenge the validity of the god of the Jews, a god since shared by the other two religions of Abraham.
It was this retributive God of Abraham who told an American president to invade Iraq. This same Abrahamic God is encouraging Islamic terrorism today. This same god is now telling evangelical fundamentalist Christians in the United States to turn a blind eye to governmental environmental initiatives. This same god is saying to them: have no worry about Planet Earth; you are living in the end of times. When it no longer serves My purpose, you will all be with Me in paradise.
Nor does it end there. In all three of the religions of Abraham we have centuries upon centuries of other disjointed interpretations of how God would respond to this or to that. A Christian example today is the Roman Catholic Churches’ stance on the use of condoms under the Vatican rule that God considers them an “intrinsic evil.”
As these examples illustrate, wrong thinking about GOD can have enormous consequences. What appears to be of greatest consequence now revolves around the possibility of those of the Hebraic faiths through Judeo/Christian and Islamic end of times collective intentionality allowing the continued destruction of our planet.
www.InquiryAbraham.com
2
Nonsense. As pointed out by by the recently deceased Stephen Hawking, science can explain everything without the necessity of a god. The most valuable "comfort" of religion surely comes from a community of believers. But that community is fragmenting. The strongest community of "believers" in the United States is without doubt evangelical Christians whose distrust of science approaches madness. Their inability to live in a rational world is creating a society hell bent on self destruction. What is needed is not the comfort of religion, but a community based on science, rationality, and empathy.
3
The scariest thing about not believing in a deity is that there is no final justice. The belief that all of these tyrants will meet their maker and be judged fairly always gave me a sense of peace, but without that, they manage to get away it. Without God's punishment all of them, Hitler, Idi Amin, King Leopald, all died without facing justice for their crimes against humanity.
That is what depresses me the most
I have three religious traditions to thank. My liberal Lutheran upbringing introduced me to a Christianity that was somewhat symbolic - i.e. did not commit the idolatry of taking the Bible totally literally. Still it became to conservative for my inquiring mind - which got me into trouble.
Alcoholics Anonymous - which hates to be called a religion - saved my life. I found out God does not need to be buried in dogma and faith may be had without specifics. Still it became too conservative for my inquiring mind. Literally, the notion of personal responsibility and the influence of our Christian culture, leading many AAers to be Republican and away from enlightenment.
For enlightenment I have turned to Buddhism which does not require a concept of God, yet tolerates the gods if they be good. And goodness, it turns out, is a necessity for enlightenment. Faith, in this case, is trust in the path and the promises of the practice. Faith and other fabrications are useful along the path. Any religious leader who is untrained in the Buddhist path does not have the sophistication to be leading any flock, in my opinion.
1
Asma presents a cautious, albeit unnecessarily complex, argument for religious faith. What is not stated is the simple concept of virtually every religious doctrine -- love God (however defined, but for the sake of understanding, defined as the ordered universe), meaning take care of and carefully preserve the physical world about us -- and love one another, meaning please do not fight each other, nor harm one another in any way. All the stories (say, for example, in the Bible) are designed to illuminate the challenges associated with adhering to these two rules. Whether or not they are true (factual or historical) seems irrelevant when one asks, "What are the truths in these stories?" How do they help me (us) to love and be loved in return? What a grieving mother receives are the truths of the universe -- there is love, there is hope, whether in music, poetry, the poetry of scripture, the sublime love of other humans, or the certain knowledge provided by science that life goes on one day at a time until we die.
1
I would bet if a group of atheist was stranded on an island they would turn religious pretty fast or perish. Religion is a community experience that enables law, culture, civilization and survival. It creates rituals that disarm conflict. It unites and strengthens the bonds between a people and pushes them through the tragedies of life.
Most people need the preaching and enforcement that religion provides even in comfortable big cities that blend out the light of the stars. Religion helps keeping families together by repeating the core values in community and encouraging not to give up, to love your neighbor, to care for others, to seek help in distress.
And that is why critics like Richard Dawkins are naïve and simpleminded. They ignore the organic nature of humankind.
1
If religion (or belief in a god or gods) comforts people when they are in pain, fine. This should be weighed against the harm done by religion, which is of an entirely different magnitude. We have the crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem Witch trials, the current Rohingya genocide (by Buddhists against Muslims), Jewish Holocaust, terrorist actions by Muslim extremists, pedophilia committed by priests, rabbis, and clerics of all faiths, the violence between Hindus and Muslims at the partition of India, the core Jewish belief that Jews are a 'chosen people', the current exposure of the corruption of Buddhist priests in Thailand, and, close to home, that a spiritual leaders from my own past, Guru Amrit Desai, of the Kripalu Ashram, had sex with his female disciples and threatened them to keep them quiet, then continued at another location. Religion is very much like an opiate, it is a drug that is comforting in some situations, but the damage it has done to multitudes throughout history far outweighs the benefits.
2
If you believe God created the world then when you are studying physics, chemistry, biology, and all the other sciences, you are studying the world God created.
No need of religion for that.
1
I'm pretty sure the answer is "Imaginary Beings We Worship"
Your are right, Mr. Asma. Mythology, aka Religion, can give us phony answers to all the questions that cannot be answered.
I believe in science, but if religion comforts you, I’m OK with whatever works for you. As John Lennon said,
“Whatever gets you through the night
It's all right, it's all right“
2
The writer is giving us the harmless version of religion, the one where human suffering is alleviated through the warm hug of fellow parishioners.
But that's not the whole picture. There is an ugly side to religion, one of them being that it turns their practitioners' world view into one of "us vs. them," whoever they are. Because the problem is, there is more than one religion even though there may only be one God, and everybody thinks only their group is worshiping the correct way.
As we just read the other day in this paper, this religion business that you feel so warm and fuzzy about causes some parents to force their 13-year-old daughters to marry their rapists. Homosexuals in some Middle East countries are stoned to death, and on and on.
I find it downright warped that as a philosophy professor you advance such childish, uncooked arguments, such pollyanish nonsense. Like someone who has been a vegan his whole life and now for the first time eats a steak and declares, grease running down his chin, that now he understands Texas.
Get a grip.
And just for the record, when I faced traumatic events in my life, religion never presented itself as consolation. I remember well how puzzled I was that people crammed into houses of worship after 9/11.
And lastly, leave Bill Nye out of this.
1
The reptilian brain that Asma wants to pander to is very strongly in evidence in the Oval Office at the moment.
Yes, sometimes some people do need religion (or something else) to cope with terrible things happening. But while no one should want to wound a grieving mother by trying to kill her faith, Asma seems to want to use that to emotionally blackmail us into not applying rational criticism to religion in general.
And, frankly, many of these "Stone" articles seem to want to claim that it's somehow unfair or inhuman to start by applying rational critiques to religious premises.
It’s a similar problem with academic philosophy, which is prevalent in The Stone. A very hard sell made deliberately confusing so that it might be thought logical or truthful. Organized religion sometimes depends on the same ploy.
The problem with religion is it makes you always right and anyone who doesn’t share your beliefs always wrong.
We should all realise that where we are now is a heavenly paradise, it’s us who ruins it
too many people live in a fantasy world............................
Religions are toxic, vestigial forms of psychological bondage used mainly to control others that have outlived their "usefulness", if they ever had one.
They came into being when people could still plausibly believe in "boogeymen" as a result of a dearth of scientific rebuttal data. But alas, I believe the boogeymen red herring can finally, safely be put aside at this late date, which leaves us where, exactly?
Yes, we can point to reams of anecdotal evidence where "religion" can comfort a grieving soul by telling people lies about how the deceased's soul is now with "god" and all
the wonderful things that accompany that.
Has it ever occurred to all of you mad geniuses out there that if we all weren't indoctrinated into this nonsense in the first place that we wouldn't need to be told these idiotic lies to make us feel better about the passing of a loved one?
Humans invented religion so we give this salve to ourselves.
Great we're not rational. That explains everything.
“ But I do want to argue that its irrationality does not render it unacceptable.” What an absolutely asinine statement. If something is irrational it is by definition unacceptable. Theology apologists like yourself help to keep the masses believing some bearded man in the clouds listens to their prayers to bring them good fortune and tells them what they should eat, wear, read, and think.
What is wrong with having people face the truth?
1
Professor Asma is no doubt correct that neither Bill Nye or Neil de Grasse Tyson will be much help to the grieving mother. But neither will he, with his talk about the reptilian brain and the mammalian brain. It is worth contemplating that a support dog, with no inkling of a religious belief, would do a better job than any of the three.
What has professor Asma told us that Marx didn't? Is maximum emotional comfort always the objective? Is the delusional life the most fulfilling?
What science gives us (that religion can't). The truth!
4
Good analysis. I'm an atheist ..... and a hypocrite; i.e., should something horrible happen I will fall into the arms of my family and friends who will soothe me with anything else but science. So I go on declaring religion folly knowing that it;s there when I need it.
The most irrational, non-empirical, "not even wrong" (to quote physicist Wolfgang Pauli) dogmatic religion ever conceived is that of physicalism (formerly known as materialism, until the realization dawned that nobody quite knew what matter was - never mind that not a single philosopher or physicist has come up with a coherent definition of the word "physical" other than (a) it's what physicists study; and (b) it's not mind ("what is mind? no matter. What is matter? Never mind.")
One might refer to this religion as "emergentism."
First there was nothing (Krauss and other physicalists contest this, but have nothing to offer but pure faith).
Then, something emerged. How? Easy to explain - it emerged.
Then, a few trillionths of a second after that, patterns (we refer to as "laws") emerged? How? They emerged.
Approximately 300,000 years later, elements began to form. How? You know.
How and why did these patterns sustain themselves? If you dropped a pack of cards on the ground and they formed a card castle, you'd be stunned. But physicalists like Steven Weinberg actually claim that because these patterns exist, they explain themselves!??
Some 9 billion years later, life emerged (NYU biologists spent 3 days defining "life" and gave up - no, nobody knows how it happened).
Then sentience emerged. Then emotions. Then reason and self-awareness.
How?
Easy.
They emerged.
The medieval scholastics never came up with anything as utterly incoherent.
2
Religion gives you what you want, not what you get.
As an agnostic philosopher studying the philosophy of the Middle Ages, I cannot but become a little bit sad reading op-eds like this.
This is the NYT philosophy section, but philosophers are allowed to write op-eds that are demonstrably false ... . I cannot but tend to believe that one of the reasons why so many voters became victims of fake news in the US is because of the very low quality of its philosophy classes - knowing that Plato invented philosophy precisely to obtain a technique that allows you to distinguish a proven fact (called "Idea") from a merely subjective opinion ("doxa").
This op-ed for instance bluntly states that religion is irrational, and would even "irritate the rational brain". There are NO scientific studies WHATSOEVER proving this notion. It's merely a very popular opinion today, even among many "intellectuals".
All you have to do to observe how false it is, is to start reading for instance Thomas Aquinas (or any other great pre-20th century philosopher, as most of them are Christians). You cannot possibly read this with your reptilian or mammalian brain, you need your neocortex, and need to use it very intensely, as this is one of the greatest philosophies ever invented by human beings.
So what Asma is calling "irritating the rational brain" here simply means that HE tends to get irritated because believing in a God goes against his belief that there is no God, and people happen to tend to dislike beliefs that contradict theirs, and that's it..
1
Whoa! The scholastics were tasked with using the logic of their time to prove a "metaphysical" proposition i.e. the existence of God. As Kant made clear, epistemic understanding requires sensory evidence (even if you don't subscribe to his belief in the a priori concepts of the understanding or the a priori forms of intuition). If, from that point of departure, one looks at the scientific method as a definition of "rational", the "proof" of an irrational position (i.e. one without empiric evidence) using reason alone does not fall within the definition of "rational".
Good Lord! This is Sophistry, pure and simple.
2
Pointless of course to compare or weigh this essay's plea for religion based on its salvation value to one individual in crisis - the same consoled my immigrant grandmother also through many aging traumas - against the current tragedies and savageries inflicted by Rakhine Buddhists - Buddhists no less! - upon their compatriot Rohingya Muslims, or by Muslim against Muslim in current Mideast conflicts, or by Semite against Semite in current Mideast conflicts, or by Christian against Christian in two World Wars, and so forth back through millennia now of faith-based slaughter of the innocents in the name of - sometimes - a deity purported to love all humankind equally - or just those circumcised, or just those with blood-marked threshold, or those who pray five times, or seven times facing in a certain direction, or just those who wear saffron robes, or pin their supplications to the prayer wheels blowing in some Himalayan wind, or those who ingest a prepared herb or wafer…
Thank you, John Lennon.
2
This is one of the most intellectually sloppy opinion pieces I have ever read in the New York Times. Once college philosophy professors begin encouraging us to embrace the "reptilian brain," it's a sure sign that our society is in trouble.
Religions should be evaluated on the basis of the claims they make about themselves: namely, that they are true, not merely useful. All the world's major religions claim to be true accountings of humankind's origin, place in the universe, and ultimate purpose. To evaluate them only as an emotional coping mechanism is intellectually dishonest.
1
Why would anyone be so dim as to say that science can't console the living. Carl Sagan said it. We are all made of star stuff. How inspirational is that? Not only are we not going anywhere, we've always been here. And we always will. Endlessly recycled through the ages of the cosmos. How wonderful! Take your stupid heaven with the harps and streets of gold. These are stories fit for children.
You suggest that a lie, a myth, is the best way to deal with grief? How silly. To run away from truth is no way to live and face reality. I didn't need the God fairy tale to adjust to the deaths of my family members. Your credetials would suggest that you are smarter than this.
1
"Your credetials "sic" would suggest that you are smarter than this."
Agree 100%. Was shocked that contributor was a "professor of philosophy". This is a shockingly sloppy and unconvincing argument.
If any of us submitted his argument in philosophy 101, we'd be lucky to get any sort of passing grade.
1
Religion provides a fairy tale for people to believe in. If that gives them some comfort then let them spend their time and money on a false premise.
God is telling this preacher to get a $54M private jet.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/nation-now/2018/06/03/jesse-dupla...
I am so comforted...
2
Atheism is more than just a neocortical session at the Rational Workout Center. I've actually never met a non-emotionally driven atheist. They confront me with strong emotion all the time. They bond with other atheists in lizardlike ways, smirking and scoffing at religious folk like giggling geckos.
Sam Harris is terrified at Muslims who he is sure will destroy the world, even though all threats of nuclear holocaust have come from rationally minded secularists and the completely irreligious Donald Trump.
It's complicated, this dip into the myriad folds of the human brain. The present essay depends entirely on logic and reason to highlight the value ad legitimacy of religion. This is ironic.
What would a lizard say to validate religion? I submit he or she would either run from you or bite you.
No further argument necessary.
Religion Poisons Everything- Christopher Hitchens.
Amen, Brother, Amen.
2
Religion is the opiate of the masses. And fundamentalism is the crack cocaine. Or crystal meth. Seriously.
1
The religious belief that our world is made up only of those things that we have happened to determine through our limited senses is naive. Even when we leverage out our senses with technology, math, logic and deductive reasoning we can never assume that there is not more, much more than we can currently see or prove with an equation or in a lab.
We do however have a subtle layer of perception that offers us a sense of beauty, justice and compassion that science cannot explain. Just as science has found a theoretical "source" of mass, energy and space, we must also assume a source of beauty, justice and compassion. Just as we once, not long ago, lacked knowlege of physics and chemistry, there are still many subjects that await our understanding.
Religion attempts to fill in these spaces with myth, metaphor, prophecy and faith. In doing so it has given us moral insights that we could not have acheived through science.
Logic cannot assume that life is finite. The belief in our scientifically ordained oblitheration is just as much a function of faith as the belief in heaven or hell. What science does not know continues to overwhelm what science does know. In this respect science and religion are similar. Religion errs in claiming that it knows everything that is worth knowing. It does not. Neither religion nor science can claim as yet to be the last word. True religion respects the realm of science and honest science must respect the realm of faith.
1
Why does "God" have to be anthropomorphic?
Perhaps "God" is only a process. You need to make your studies and observations about religion and it's effects with a non human or animal like deity.
You might comprehend that the cry for religion as we currently conceive of it is really a cry for mommy and daddy to make things better.
2
So basically you're saying that religion preys on people's grief?
Sounds about right.
1
I've always wondered how religion *could* be consoling. The woman's religion tells her that she will be re-united with her son — or does it? Because her religion also tells her that it is *good* that her son was brutally murdered. And if *that* is good, then perhaps it is *also* good that her son burn for all eternity. If we can be *so* wrong about what is good and what is bad that we, from our narrow little human points of view can think that a murder that is good (because else why would God allow it?) is actually bad, then maybe we are similarly confused when we think that there is an eternal reward for the morally decent. Maybe they burn and Hitler rules a vast lebensraum in the sky.
And if God didn't in any meaningful sense "allow" this murder, He certainly allows natural suffering. We think that cancer is bad and should be cured. But God made cancer — not bad human decisions but the natural order of the universe for which no sinful human can be blamed — so we're wrong: if God exists, then cancer is good. But if cancer is good, then maybe it's also good that the morally good suffer endlessly. Seriously, *if we're wrong about whether cancer is good*, then we haven't got the faintest idea what's good and what's bad. If God exists, then anything is permitted.
If God existed, then... read a lot of H.P. Lovecraft and you'll begin to get a faint glimmer of an iota of a penumbra of a suggestion what the world would be.
Writer Mary McCarthy said (allegedly): 'Religion makes good people better and bad people worse.'
1
I don't agree with that statement, because it wastes the time of "good people" on ridiculous fantasy and tricks those people into believing that their "goodness" springs from or is somehow dependent on a source not their own.
As far as the "bad people worse" part, I don't buy that, either. Yes, it provides "bad" people a framework for "forgiveness" so they can go out and continue to do "bad" things, but they would probably do those things, anyway.
I've never heard that aphorism before, but it's a stupid one.
I don't deny that it's nice that the mother's crackpot beliefs gave her solace when she needed it, but that does not convince me that religion is a general force for good in the world.
So begins the psychotherapeuticalization of religion.
All the beliefs of human kind current a thousand years (or even less) ago have been shown to be erroneous except for one - religion. This is because these supernatural myths are passed on from one generation to another by indoctrinating young children to believe in after-life fantasies - a form of child mind molestation.
1
"We need a more clear-eyed appreciation of the role of cultural analgesics."
"Religion is the opiate of the masses."
Karl Marx beat this writer by 150 years.
1
Yes, it is a tough time to defend religion, because religion cannot be defended. People are waking up to the disaster that is magical thinking, self-righteousness, power and wealth seeking, sexual crimes, misogyny, twisting history, WAR, and lies, lies, lies. Free thinkers, unite!
Can this guy get an AMEN here?
Just what we need - some "Professor of Philosophy" at Columbia College telling us that what we need is more faith, belief, and good old time religion, instead of science.
Thanks a big fat lot you all in downtown Chicago college offices.
Oh, boy. We're in for it now.
We need a lot more thought and a lot less of President Trump - ok?
See you at the Chicago homeless shelters dude...
This is pure nonsense. Religions could be replaced with thoughtful philosophy, and skip all the greed, pedophilia, pointless, arbitrary authoritarian rules.
The problem is that people would have to learn how to think, starting at the age of reason. And that is why it will never happen. A magic sky daddy you can beg for favors is easier than thinking for yourself.
1
Is it better to be knowledgeable and sad or ignorant and happy?
What religion(s) are we talking about here? Asking for a friend.
1
If there is anyone, anyone at all who
can tell me how to distinguish all rational thoughts
from all irrational thoughts - let me know.
If you have ever made a mistake then you are capable
of being irrational.
If you think eliminating religion from the face of the
Earth will thereby bring about paradise, I have tickets
to Auschwitz, Mao's China, Stalin's Russia and Pol Pot's
Cambodia to recommend as your next vacation.
People are capable of outright savagery and they can
use Relgion or Political Expediencey or the simple reason
that there are just too many people in the world and so it
is time for you, yes even you - Perfectly Rational though
you are - to go.
We live in an age that thinks it personfies Wisdom.
We think we are so much smarter than all those who came
before.
We are not, we are far more foolish than they ever were
for they were humble enough to admit that they were
brought into being by the Hand of the Creator.
And by His graces alone are we given what little wisdom we have.
You just might want to know that the Holocaust did actually have some religious motivation. Even the Pope at the time didn’t have a problem with it.
I'm sure religion feels much better now that you've changed your mind.
Humans have practised "religion" for 100,000 years or more.
Religion explains the unknown.
Unlike more primitive species humans need to order their existence by explaining to themselves why things "happen".
"Science flies us to the moon, religion flies us into buildings."
Douglas Adams I think.
1
God? The essay actually uses "actually" and blob-words "many" and "very many" to defend the "ancient" belief in a supernatural something. Look, in Auschwitz God was tried for allowing the Holocaust, virtually, and found guilty, i.e. really - "actually". How brave the rabbis were.
Religion is powerful, especially in the wrong hands. Hitler detested religion and races, but loved foil-wrapped Christmas-time gifts. Stalin backed the clergy as good Communist tools and fools - when his armies started losing badly. Tokyo burned while a god-emperor kissed the kimonos of a war party. And devout Christians sold slaves down the river or axed off runaways' feet. Religion has much to answer for, and it does not take faddish "neuroscience" and "neuropsychoanalysis" or "ancient urges" and "natural urges" to explain power's hold, just an open eye to history's monstrous moments.
When I was 6, just after WWII, a mob of raging kids from St. Athanasius's Catholic School threw me against a garage and screamed for my death - their nuns had just told them that the Jews killed God, Christ, the Big Guy's Kid. "Actually" a bigger kid stopped the religious-trained ones. Thank, um, er, H.., him.
We "need" belief in Heaven? No, believe in Kermit the fictive Frog He never killed or crowned anyone. Have hope. But give back the gold and the power to fictionalize saints and demonize artists, lovers, and races. Accept reality. As Philip Roth wrote, "Old age is not a battle. Old age is a massacre."
Well first, live and let live. If some magical thinking preserves one's sanity, by all means go for it.
As a long-time atheist, I've experienced plenty of losses along the way. Grieving as an atheist is not an exercise in neo-cortal evidence-gathering, as the author implies. I'd argue it's an even-clearer path to fully experiencing your pain, which is a big part of grieving effectively.
Rather than blocking the process with consternation-inducing false questions like why (there isn't one), what is the meaning (none; it's just life), and how does this fit into the plan (it doesn't, there is no plan to fit), you just feel your loss, treasure your memories, and move on.
2
Very well said. I have an aging, ailing beloved dog who very likely won't see his 15th birthday in October. For me, falsely believing that he will "cross the rainbow bridge" wouldn't make me feel better about his passing. Instead, it would trivialize, cheapen and sanitize the how profoundly I feel (felt) about this animal and the impact he has had on my life. When he dies, he will live on only in my memory. That's enough for me. I don't have to delude myself that he's returned to full health in some silly other dimension.
1
Opioids for pain relief are a scientific miracle, a blessing when not abused. Imagine surgery without opioids.
And religion is a powerful force for good among many...except when it isn't.
I was raised a devout Catholic, but long ago decided it made no sense. In my darkest hours, however, I desperately wished I could believe, that all that was happening was part of God's plan, that things would ultimately make sense, if not now then after death.
And as I grow old, the faith in an afterlife would be very, very welcome, even if a fantasy. Alas, I find it too implausible.
We cannot judge all Muslims or Christians by the act of a a few terrorists, nor by the intolerance of governments in their name, nor can we generally judge religions because sometimes it causes harm. So does science. And Democracy. And so much else we build our society on.
2
The one thing Religion offers is hope without proof. Like all snake oil salespeople they sell delusion as if it has any virtue. Only the Religious would have the gall to think that that was an acceptable way to go through life.
Stephen Asma quotes Marx - but then uses only half of that quote to refute Marx. But, as a matter of fact, Marx says almost exactly the same thing as Asma: "Religion is the CRY...the HEART...the SOUL...." It that does not imply the emotional dimension, I don't know what would. And then Marx does not continue: "Religion is the opium FOR the people" (i.e. administered by some sinister power), but "OF the people". In their situation there is no other way out. Asma might even agree: In a perfect world, there would be no need for religion.
The story you reveal points to religion having been the dominant philosophy in your student's mother's life - and you ignore the possibility that if reason were the dominant philosophy in her life, the student's mother might have avoided the despair and depression that resulted from his brother's murder. It does not provide evidence that reason cannot give us things that religion can. But I expect nothing less from a philosopher who preaches - as do soapbox priests - that irrationality is good.
1
What is irrational is imagining any merely mortal brain knows everything.
What faith offers is renewal, forgiveness, strength and the boldness to wait for a definitive answer to be delivered at the moment we die.
What faith teaches is humility, that none of us is perfect. Anyone may fall victim to tragedy. We have a propensity to err. Therefore, forgive those who sometimes err against you.
To abolish all faith requires replacing the mysterious original driving force with the "manifest supremacy" of a single male human: a Lenin, a Mao, a Hitler, a Putin, a Kim, a Trump. We can already see, in the blind devotion of some of Putin's, or Trump's, most ardent defenders, the baffling rejection of objective data in favor of complete submission to the 'chosen master.'
I would much rather put my faith in a mysterious force from the Beyond than in any iconic aging human relic whose obvious flaws become dangerous as soon as a cult of worship grows around that 'invincible' name.
I would strongly recommend Tom Wolfe's last book, "The Kingdom of Speech." It is short, profound and thought-provoking.
The death of someone you love is difficult. Yes, there is pain to be dealt with. Ultimately one has to "accept" that the death has happened and the person is gone.
I have lost several members of my family and am dealing with it, as an atheist. I don't see how belief in God, and an imaginary hereafter in heaven really does much more than delude the survivors
1
This is second rate philosophy. As an end-justifies-the-means thinker, Mr. Asma should consider Necromancy to assuage the feelings of the berieved mother. After all, talking to her dead son would give her more comfort than merely believing that they would be reunited after death. If that a seance is not a religious service, then maybe Asma should think about the nature of religion in the Abrahamic cultures of the West.
One might characterize Mr. Asma’s position as “Religion is legitimate because it works.” That, at least, is true...religion certainly can be a life saver for some people. The problem is that it also turns out to be a real life-threatener for many people when organized on a large scale...and has oh so often been wielded to justify atrocities on a massive and individual scale. How, then, to distil the positive aspects of religion into some form of practice or belief while removing whatever it is that turns religion into an engine of hate and division? Well, the elimination of exclusionary creeds and the embrace of universal principles might be a start. Can that be done? Or is the Lizard brain just too deep and powerful?
Yes, we need comfort, and emotional support, and relief. It does not follow from that need, though, that religion is the only or best way to experience that relief.
2
compare with this article in the New Yorker re: Flat-earthers.
https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/looking-for-life-on-a-flat-earth
"The reward is existential solace. This, I came to understand, was the real draw, the thing that could make, say, an unemployed clerical worker drive twelve hours, alone, from Michigan to Raleigh. To believe in a flat Earth is to belong not only to a human community but to sit, once again, at the center of the cosmos. The standard facts of astronomy are emotionally untenable—a planet spinning at a thousand miles per hour, a mote in a galaxy of unimaginable scale, itself a mote in the vast and expanding universe."
Yes, it's easier to accept the cruel death of your child, if you deny it ever happened.
However, only the truth (i.e facts) can set you free.
1
Of course, science doesn't provide consolation when there is personal tragedy. And religion doesn't yield scientific evidence. Both statements are utterly banal. Religion provides consolation for people who are religious, but it is not the only source of consolation. Where does the author get off pronouncing on what is universal?
I've heard stories like the one about the mother whose son was stabbed to death before. What this mother did was perform a psychological trick on herself in order to keep on going. But for all that, it's still just a trick. Someone asked me once, don't you understand that people want to believe that they will see their loved ones again after death? I replied, of course I understand that they want that, but that doesn't make it true. What are we after here, tricks or truth?
This is a beautiful article. Yes, religion does seem to offer some kind of solace after deep loss, like the loss of a child or spouse. But this is something you can't understand without personally experiencing it. So all the arguments from coldly rational and smug liberals are kind of beside the point, because this is such a subjective and personal issue.
Thank you, but you are missing a huge point. The only reason there are atheists and non-believers is not because of science, but because of evolution and adaptation. People are rejecting religion because they have adapted to a greater view of nature. It did not require a telescope for someone to posit that perhaps the sun wasn't Apollo's chariot. Lot's of people require religious faith to get by. I can't think why anyone would begrudge another solace in pain. Nor should we allow our fellows to blissfully remain ignorant. It is a cruel world; often made more cruel through ignorance and blind acceptance.
2
The Great God Science has brought us to the brink of nuclear and environmental destruction. Religion has brought us outreach programs, sanctuary from despotism, and the Golden Rule. Einstein BELIEVED that his scientific revelations came from God. Because of the will to power of decidedly unholy people, organized religion has been the source of much suffering and hatred, but don't blame the Beatitudes or the Dharma of Love. The real word to consider is not Science or Religion, but Morality. Where does it come from, and what good is it? According to a book attributed to Luke, "the kingdom of heaven is within you."
One can hardly condemn religion for the solace that it brings to grieving persons. I am jealous of that capability. However, why must all that other stuff come with it? You say that " religion is energizing as often as it is anesthetizing". The problem is where that energizing leads. It often leads to illogical justification of one's basest instincts.....to racism, tribalism, extremism, judgmentalism, etc.. Keep religion but ban organized religion.
As the readers have pointed out, the article is so full of flaws, it would be nearly impossible to list them all in one post. But one flaw I see often is this initial appeal to emotion: "It's a tough time to defend religion." Christianity in this country is a trillion dollar business and is becoming more powerful every day. It doesn't need any more promotion. The NY Times often reads like Christianity Today with Ross Douthat and David Brooks weighing in once or twice a week promoting faith. I wish the NY Timers were more balanced. "It's a tough time to defend secularism."
3
interesting view, not sure how apes and elephants ( to name a few) seem to grieve and yet survive , often through social relationships. i doubt they believe in an afterlife.
3
One may as well write an essay on the theme, "What Surgery Can Provide that Ballroom Dancing Cannot."
1
What about all the crimes and atrocities committed by atheists? It is unfair to list misdeeds by religious people as a fault of their religion while not doing the same for atheists, nonbelievers etc.
My hippie bohemic grandmother whispered in my ears one day during a Ramadan meal: "you don't need to be a Muslim to know that you should love your neighbor (which is a cornerstone Islamic command), I shunned her Back then, but I deeply regret it now that I'm an atheist! I do however want something from religion (or God for that matter if exists) for a different reason, which that it apologizes for at least two crimes, the 100 lashes that deformed my bach for drinking alcohol in my late twenties, and for (by coercion) rendering my sexual life nonexistent in my teen years and my 20s! .. I will never forgive it for that..
Too often, religion has been a convenient excuse for killing your perceived enemies (cf. the Thirty Years War, e.g.)
"What Religion Gives Us (That Science Can’t)"
Answer: The unsubstantiated ability to justify anything you want.
Until "religion" can be separated from tribalism and the historic association of religion with war I will not accept the notion that religion does more good than harm in this world.
Today, the Supreme Court effectively ruled that one man's supposed religious beliefs permit him to discriminate against a gay couple. I'm not gay but I find this decision and the belief system that it defends abhorrent. What protects people of different races, religions, hair color or political affiliation from discrimination based upon professed religious beliefs?
America is moving backward, in significant part because of the special treatment given to religion; e.g. tax breaks and insulation from the law. That making America great in my opinion. It never did.
When I read the title I assumed it was an article about large-scale violence.
1
Debating belief or disbelief in god is boring due to the incapability of proof. However, in the 21st century, to believe and practice any religion based on purported divine revelations is to be willfully blind and self deceiving.
Science gives us our biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit African primate ape human race species 300,000 year old nature.
We are driven to crave fat, salt, sugar, habiitat, water, kin and sex by any means necessary including conflict and cooperation. Whether or not you believe science is true.
No amount of religious faith can define and make reality. How we feel emotionally and mentally is a matter of personal opinion.
1
Religion needs to pack it in.
Religion basically consists of beliefs that there exist a "soul", a "god", and an "afterlife" which is humankind's response to a natural fear of and aversion to death. People are uncomfortable with the fact that they and their friends and loved ones will one day cease to exist, so they made up this silliness that there is a soul which lives forever and will move on to some afterlife to hang with god and look after you.
Sounds funny, right?
1
I wonder at the space the NY Times gives to yet another serving of cold porridge superstition, asking us all to wonder "How could a grieving atheist mother possibly survive?"
I'm troubled by the weak reasoning Mr. Asma offers in his parables. Is not religion a beneficial opioid? Without religious services, how would anyone assemble supporting friends? Can I not defend an entire institution with a single student's anecdote?
Isn't it possible to harness animal emotions and irrational beliefs for good? Well, look at the record. We've had three millennia of institutional attempts in many different cultures to harness the irrationality of immortality, infallibility and sectarian superiority of god kings, divine rights, polytheisms and several monotheisms.
The core problem with all of them is that the social software to harness animal emotions is too easily hacked for malign purposes -- the Elmer Gantry bug. Not that religion has done harm, but that it is inherently and will always be too easily used for harm.
Most hilarious is his weird use of the ad hominem "we": "I used to treat religion with scorn and contempt. I know all you other unbelievers do too." Actually, no. I take my lead from David Hume, not Karl Marx.
To paraphrase Wittgenstein: Whereof Mr. Asma cannot talk sensibly and accurately -- thereof he should remain silent.
I had a security blanket when I was a child, it help me when I was confused...or at least that's how it felt to me.
Religion has repeatedly promoted "deliberate ignorance", the idea that somehow it is "holy" to repeat nonsensical gibberish.
God did not give us the gift of reasoned thought, as a cruel joke.
Well...Let's cut out the MiddleMan and give out Communion wafers with a micro dose of LSD. All ushers to be trained facilitators to counter any ill effects.
If all that can be said for belief systems, using magical thinking, is that it is therapeutic in times of trouble, let's get all the endorphins to join in!
Pascals Wager is not logical in Cathedrals or Las Vegas.
What Science Gives Us (That Religion Can’t) - A Real Understanding of How the Universe Works and Our Place In It.
2
Religion gives; false security; made up certainty, fanatism, justification for discrimination, and impunity for sexual abuse.
Statistics are the seculars irrational faith. They work for the DNC, Google, environmentalist and beer companies but why? We no longer go to astrologers or numerologist o find the perfect answer we have the science of statistics. Sometimes they could be fake. Drink beer its healthy and you'll live longer. When they're factual we can reach some really unjustified conclusions. Women's brains in general are smaller than men's so it's a waste to send women to college. Do i go by statistics or with personal experience and common sense? How would otherwise explain there's so many women smarter than men when there's numbers to prove its not possible?
The opiate of the masses as Marx has been paraphrased.
Religions exist in part to create meaning out of the senselessness of death. We will all die. Everything is fundamentally out of control. Religion helps us come to grips with that fact.
1
A preacher recently stated on television that he needed a 55 million jet. He lives in a 30,000 square foot house tax free. The 55 million dollar jet is his third jet. Please feel free to explain to me why my tax dollars are going to support this person.
That last sentence is some very lazy writing- please speak for yourself.
In your article, you mention other forms of pain relief- friendship, love, work, hobbies. I’ll add art and meditation. All these are great and don’t require one to believe in a lie. And they have no side effects.
You can participate in community without the belief system.
One of the problems with religion is that it conditions us to believe things without evidence. So when a POTUS, for instance, says “I believe they possess WMDs” as W did, and their is no evidence to support it, a significant number of people sill say”Well, he believes it. That’s good enough for me”.
Personally, I’d rather know the truth about life, even if it might mean more stress. And, if you don’t believe some Bronze Age nonsense, you can’t make yourself.
So your argument is that we should embrace religion as a crutch but like drugs or alcohol there can also be unpleasant side effects.
Considering the mass carnage and suffering perpetrated in the name of religion for centuries, the suffering of the mother in this article is trivial. Religion is superstition that fills a void created by ignorance and it's the ultimate vehicle for controlling people and even getting them to turn against those who refuse to believe and be controlled.
1
Asma asserts that religion is "irrational." "Non-rational" is a less pejorative descriptor (and possibly more accurate.)
A mythical god and a relegion that makes absolutely no sense doesn't console a grieving mother.
We cannot deny a crippled man his crutch. But we should help him heal to walk without one.
Enlightenment will make the run, not religion. Finally.
This is truly absurd. How comforting is it to hear "the lord works in mysterious ways" after the death of a loved one, for example.
From suicide bombings to honor killings, the stultification of education and the subjugation of women, even down to teh lowly scam artists that call themselves "reverend", every day the news brings us quite a bit of tragic "comfort" committed in the name of religion that we would be far better off without.
1
Why did God let the child get stabbed to death in the first place?
The argument against God is stronger than the myth of an afterlife.
What the author doesn't understand in his absurd essay, is that rational people cannot fool themselves, i.e. their brain or any part thereof, into believing in magic. Just as religious people follow the dogma of their inherited religion, rational thinkers follow the dogma that rationality rules.
Religion is simply elaborate wishful thinking. It has nothing to do with reality. Why bother?
Neither the use of of religion to demean and divide people.
The adult son of an extremely devout woman I know recently passed away. This woman was in heart-wrenching agony, held together only by her firm assertion that "I will see my little boy's smile and hold him in my arms again, for all eternity".
Logically, I envisioned some sort of human chain... she holds her son, her parents hold her, and everyone holding them holds any other of their deceased loved ones? And what if someone doesn't want to spend eternity being held by someone who wants to hold them?
Also logically, why do people who are truly devout in their religious beliefs have such searing grief, when they adamantly know that they will be with their loved ones again?
I think too much?
All well and good for those who choose to believe. Whatever helps one get through the day. Nobody should denigrate another person because of their beliefs. If meditating on, say, a flag pole or a statue every morning helps calm one's inner strife, or comfort one's loss, how dare someone else say that's not valid?
1
As an agnostic (though baptized Lutheran and raised Catholic until High School), your article is thoughtful, even elegant, and compassionate. And if anybody has the 'feeling' (emotion) there is something mysterious beyond their own self that may help cope with their suffering, so be it. I just don't think that our need to belong and share our social needs with others emotionally (as well as intellectually) requires religion. Besides, you may agree that the attributes we give to God do mimic human needs and wishes faithfully; this, plus the 'evil' forces in this world, of our own creation, point to one fact, that we invented a God to our specifications to justify the unjustifiable, human greed and cruelty towards each other. Yes, there may be redemption if we truly show 'repentance' of our faults damaging others, and an honest try to help by balancing our own selfish needs with those of our fellow human beings. But no religion needs to be present, as it would take away any chance of discussing things rationally (dogma won't allow it)...and let justice, if not love, make us relevant again. As humbly as I can feel it (it's a long road), we just aren't smart enough to know whether there is a God or not; and yet, be in awe of the beauty of 'our' universe, and the miracle of understanding some of it's mysteries by the imperfect yet honest trial of science in satisfying our curiosity.
1
Religion's great advantage is that faith groups will almost always let you in. When you're in a new town, and you knock on the door of the church, the door opens and you're welcomed into the community. I'm an atheist, but I recognize the importance and value of what religion provides. It's only recently with the rise of the "Christian Right" that this simple and valued contribution to society has become a threat in its aggressive attempts to knock down the barrier between church and state. As long as that wall exists, religion has its place in American society. America was never intended to be a theocracy. The most influential founding fathers were more deists than theists. They saw the importance of religious freedom, but insisted that it not involve itself in the running of the country. That is part of the genius of the American system of government, and something that must continue to function as designed.
4
Understanding truth, sense of logic and courage has very negative correlation with strength of one’s religious faith & his/her ability to uphold multicultural secular democracy.
Many of us often confuses one's ability to follow protocols, learn various technical skills, with having scientific temperament & fact based logical/scientific thinking. Many people might be great as technicians &/or clerks (to write grant proposals & articles), but many not have any scientific temperament & full of religious superstitions. We sometimes forget that technicians (e.g Ben Carson) or clerks are not scientists, even though they may have a PhD or a job with professor or scientist designation. There is a reason why more than 93% of American scientists (members of American National Academy of Sciences) did not believe in God just a couple of decades ago.
Many times great scientific talents compromised with existing social norms and dominance of religion in a society to get things done. Sometimes that reluctance or tactic compromise is considered as support towards religious beliefs.
On the other hand, many previously religious people gain wisdom and start understanding limitations of religion and the need to separate it from education and also government. In fact, the American concept of secularism and separation of church from the state in those British colonies in North America during early 17th century first came from an English puritan minister Roger Williams.
2
Using Mr. Asma's logic, I conclude that drugs are even better than religion -- they also ease pain, cause joy, and promote sociability. And all without the debilitating side-effects of religion, e.g., an often murderous intolerance.
3
Professor Asma,
May I presume to suggest a recently published work for you and your readers summer reading. The book is entitled, "Quantum Revelation" (A Radical Synthesis of Science and Spirituality) by Paul Levy.
Respectfully,
dsp
I can accept that "god" is really a kid in another dimension that created "our" universe as a 7th grade science fair project. I can accept that for the human species and the planet to survive we need to love and care for and about each other. I can also accept that God, or the gods if you wish, are aliens from another planet.
Where I have a problem with organized religions is the master-servant mentality between the "priests" and the followers. I take exception to "our religion is the REAL one" ideas that seek to exterminate the fake religions and their followers. I take exception to religions, their priests, and followers that willfully ignore religious laws and life instructions given to them by their god.
We are free to believe in a religion or not. Human created religions are nothing more than ways to obtain wealth for a few and control the population. Religion has been responsible for the murder of many millions. I do not need or want to have eternal life and I certainly do not want people murdered in my name just because they did not believe in the "correct" religion.
There are four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum of servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking.
Christoper Hitchens
If making a grieved mother whole again by having her believe a totally fabricated set of circumstances leading to her meeting her son sometime, somewhere again is the argument for the usefulness of Religion, then we must also promote "ignorance" as a state of mind that is more desirable for it will be easier to satisfy a person who is ignorant.
I do not take the scriptures literally, & I truly believe that religion is the bane of humanity. The statement in the Old Testament that Homosexuality is an Abomination, is the cause of persecution of millions of Homo sexual people, & is responsible for the deaths & suicide of Children.
Having said all this I agree with the author that religion does offer relief, if only that in prayer, we express our fears & despair, rather than keep it inside, where it festers to a point that make living a hardship.It is far less expensive than therapy, or tranquilizers, although, having access to tranquilizers & Therapists aids in the healing process.
1
This article is ridiculous!
Sweden is 85% atheist; are there no empathetic people there? No nurse to hold you and cry when you lose your baby?
I’m a lapsed Catholic/agnostic. When I was helping to set up small neighborhood clinics in underserved areas of Utah I worked up to 18 hours a day, writing protocols AND seeing my clinic and hospital patients in Salt Lake City. One day out of the blue an administrator asked me what ward or stake I was in. (Mormon parishes or congregations).
Surprised I laughed and said I’m an agnostic--then had to explain the word. All the men were gobsmacked--slack jawed, not speaking. I might as well have said I’m a stripper or a call girl. “But you’re so NICE! You’re wonderfully empathetic to everyone here and to all of our patients.”
I simply said that societal evolution has shown that living well with others, being kind, giving our all was part of creating a heaven on EARTH. There is no afterlife...so we had better work on making life good for every human being NOW.
A person who ticks a box for “religion” is NOT a better person than I am or relates better with others. And I have been lauded for my care. It’s not for applause as I’m “nice” for that builds trust between people. (And I’m just nice!)
I’d say let the “nones” have their own column but we already KNOW we are being sensitive and nurturing. We don’t need space in the Times to present our side!
That’s pretty childish-right?
3
Magical, superstitious, wishful thinking is seldom the antidote to any event.
Can we please ditch the obvious idiotic dichotomy of science versus faith?
Bogus claims:
1) your personal belief or religion is true.
They (religions) can't all be true. Everybody is an atheist to everybody else's religion, and to every religion buried in that vast graveyard of mythology (Zeus, Thor, et al)
2) morality follows from religious belief.
Belief that morality follows from some ancient inerrant text by a perfect supreme being is clearly false. The sacred text of the Abrahamic religions is saturated with anecdotes of every type of atrocities (Mose, Joshua, et al) known to mankind. Moral behavior has to be imposed on the bible from without, as it is rare to find it within. Keep the golden rule and the Beatitudes, throw the rest of the book in the trash.
3) atheism is just another religion.
The word 'atheism' is not needed. There is no word for non-astrologer. An 'atheist' is simply a person who has entertained the claims of the religious, read the books, and found the claims to be ridiculous.
1
So, Mr. Asma, your big idea (or more accurately, feeling) is that we should treat each other like little children or like reptiles? Brilliant!
2
The First Amendment gives us freedom of religion, as well as freedom from religion.
As long as you respect my right not to be bound by your religious beliefs, you can believe anything you like.
Those who require religious practice to “manage” their emotions and provide their “mental life” “with alleviation of stress and anxiety” are destined to look for particular religious dogma as their main, going on exclusive, guide for the ways of the worthy life – thus religion envelopes its core of aggressive zealotry first with a layer of emotional numbness and then with “connecting” piety.
1
Alan Watts ran circles around this writer 65 years ago. Go read "The Wisdom of Insecurity" for a deeper understanding of religion and science, belief and faith. Really.
1
"First, religion is energizing as often as it is anesthetizing. As often as it numbs or sedates, religion also riles up and invigorates the believer." ....Energizing and anesthetizing...these are both extremes and bind us to excess and suffering, right?
Oh, come on. I am a Jew but have no belief in anything like an afterlife. People came to my mother's shiva because they were my friends and also because we share a religious community. I felt comforted when they asked to hear stories about my mother, when they enjoyed her pictures and when they were just there. The Jewish aspect to all this was the framework of shiva, with its prayer and rituals. Time heals, with or without heaven or hell, with or without a service. As I say about psychotherapy, the healer is time, the words help to pass the time. So it is with religion. Religion provides rituals that allow time for a person to recover from shocks to her system. It needn't be the only thing that works in this way, and as the author writes, it isn't. Religion comforts if one has been raised to be comforted by religion. It's as circular as that.
1
Religion is always awful when thrust onto people. This is why lax enforcement of "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" is so disastrous.
1
Meaning and magic blend in the night.
Religion does provide many with an emotional crutch, I have no problem with that. What I resent is when the religious try and beat me with it.
Ahhh, but religion never gave us a finely aged Porterhouse steak. Neither did science, but that's a different non sequitur discussion.
Thinking about suffering is what finally drove me from being agnostic to just plain aetheist. I can't see how religion contributes anything to the world, these days - maybe in the past. But theses days the Catholic church has been outed for SO many crimes, including dissolving parishes over the objections of old parishioners, just for filthy lucre; the Jewish religion has been permanently defiled by it's treatment of palestinians; the list for the ills religion causes just goes on and on. American Christians hate gays and african americans, love guns and pregnant women, ditto with the Mormons..It is just all nothing to do with my attempt to live my life correctly at all. I would rather study the behavior of whales or sparrows or plants or clouds than go to church.
3
My wife died of cancer a few years ago. She was not a believer, yet she faced her death bravely. Family, friends, and co-workers visited in her last days and reminded her of her life's accomplishments and their enduring love. I am also not a believer and am encouraged by her example.
Religion can provide solace through community but an irrational belief system is not the only means of bring people together to provide comfort to the afflicted. People can suffer loss and the prospect of death without belief in an afterlife.
Religion also has its downside, including protracted wars. Europeans suffered the One Hundred Years between Protestant and Catholic Christians. Today, in the Middle East, Sunni and Shiites Muslims fight and kill each other as well as those who are not Muslims in the name of religion.
Science does not pretend to offer solace or moral guidance, only to explain the causes of observable events.
3
The short version of the argument being made here for religion is that it can make us feel good in the face of reality. It can act like a drug to relieve pain. But to use this argument to somehow imply science is lacking is to perpetrate the old stereotypes about Faith versus Reason.
Religion and Science do different things. Faith helps us cope with what we can't explain or understand about the world; Science seeks to find the explanations we need to understand the world so that we can do more than just cope with it.
To return to the pain metaphor for a moment, while a drug may suppress pain, the purpose of medicine is to understand what is causing the pain and treat the root cause. To simply keep drugging someone instead of seeking a cure is only justifiable if medicine tells us no cure is possible - but medicine will keep looking. It is not invalidated for lack of a cure.
Science and Religion are both tools humans use to make a kind of sense of the world. They work in different ways, have different capabilities. They can both be misused. They both have limits.
Religion without Science is just whistling in the dark when you have no other recourse for your fears. Science seeks to bring light into the darkness - but shadows still remain. As long as humans are bundles of unreason, we will need both.
3
Philosophically I am an agnostic. Practically I am an atheist. The love I feel for my family is untainted by religious dogma.
As I helped my children through life’s many difficulties, I looked to what human beings had discovered over the centuries for the best ways to express what I felt, and to help them prevail against misfortune. There is useful knowledge encoded in religious practice, but as an atheist I am free to draw on what is most useful, using evidence and reason as my guide. We can happily celebrate Christmas without believing in the literal existence of Santa Claus, and the story of Jesus is no less inspiring when he is seen as a man, a part of Nature exactly like ourselves.
In my view, religious belief is what prevents many people from offering support to others. They cling dogmatically to what they have been told as infants, as opposed to looking scientifically for new knowlege, be it outwards into the cosmos, or inward into the many ways that we have found over time to live together as human beings.
2
The death of a loved one is the quintessential moment when humans need consolation. And if anything could push a person beyond the boundary of rationality, it would be the death of a child. So, as an atheist, I do not find belief in everlasting life after death "unacceptable." (Unacceptable is when religious people start wanting to enforce their behavioral strictures on me and all of society.) No, I actually feel rather tender toward the many, many people I have known who cling to the idea they will re-join their beloved family members in heaven. They do indeed seem to find it comforting, and why wouldn't they?
It is, however, instructive as a lesson in the human capacity for self-delusion. Santa Claus for grown-ups, if you will. And no, science won't do that for you.
6
I am well acquainted with both sides of the religion/science story -- having been raised in an evangelical tradition, by reforming modernist parents, and then going into scientific pursuits, and studying other religious traditions.
I described myself as a spiritual person, but I lost all "faith" long ago and do not believe in any religious doctrine.
But I also participate in religious and spiritual traditions as part of how we deal with the human condition, the same way that great literature provides solace and insight. I appreciate prayers offered as one of the ways humans show concern for others - though I know they have no material effect.
I lost my teenage daughter after an exhausting multi-year struggle several years ago, and I experienced first hand how intense grief and PTSD create strong illusions of supernatural phenomena. But I never believed these visitations were real, except when in the actual grip of grief spell. But it was a powerful lesson in the source of religious impulses and beliefs.
My family has found observing the traditions of Dia de los Muertos to be a powerful remedy to deal with our grief. It is a very wise tradition, based on remembrance of those lost, and accepting death as an inevitable part of life, not just its end. I do not believe that the story behind the tradition is real, that my lost daughter is still alive in the land of the dead, but it helps to act as if I did.
2
Better to raise people to believe the truth and teach acceptance of the transient nature of life. We exist or we don't exist, that's a fact. An acceptance of that would likely result in a more humane world today as the myth of some magically happy afterlife were shed and it's resulting aberrant behavior.
5
Theistic religion is a social fantasy. I don't have problem with fantasy--storytelling and fantasy are integral parts of the human imagination and can be healthy outlets--but at the present moment in our social evolution religious fantasy still holds an outsized place in human discourse. It damages the fabric of our secular lives by interfering with objective choices or scientific research. When theistic religion has the much smaller footprint that it ought to have in our public life then proper balance will exist and we will no longer have to endure the often dangerous waves of religious fanatacism which troubles our public spaces.
7
In my opinion, this commentary sets up a false choice; either you choose religion, with its comforts and community, or you get cold, hard science.
It's true that science will not offer a grieving mother the belief that her son will be made whole on the afterlife, though I do find many scientific ideas counterintuitively comforting (e.g, when you realize that you are not the center of the universe, your grief is placed in context and feels less overwhelming). But the other aspects of religion - the community, the rituals - are all available elsewhere, especially when religion is not there to dominate the field. Religions gives people a ready made community, but we can do that in other ways.
I would agree with the author that if we were able to strip the negative aspects away from religion (e.g., distrust of outgroups and scientific discoveries) it could be useful. But not necessary.
5
The whole premise of this article is faulty. Religion does not have to be defended! It cannot be proven because it has no place in a rational world. It's value lies in its ability to sustain us as we make decisions, good or bad, in the absence of a perfect, rational existence. As the boundaries of knowledge expands through science and education the domain of this rational existence changes
One religion can be "defended" (compared might be a better word) to other religions. For example, religions that do not adapt but continue to hold onto values that contradict the expanding rational existence risk being viewed as cults.
1
I think that Mr Asma presents a caricature of science and underestimates its capacity to provide solace.
As a scientist and a life-long agnostic, it was only my recognition of the incredible strangeness of modern physics--that, say, our universe may be best described by non-Euclidean geometry, that a photon may exhibit properties of both a wave and a particle, that "spooky action at a distance" may, in fact occur--and the realization that, at certain levels, the world operates outside the familiar rules of macroscopic "everyday reality," that allowed me to hope that some sort of afterlife might exist in which I could hope to reunite with my beloved dead.
5
I don't believe Americans are attacking "christianity". I think that all but the most radical religionists believe that in OUR United States of America an individual is free to worship as they please - or not - in their homes and places of worship.
However, organized religion is another matter. It's nothing but a money machine with the intent to control others. No religion has a right to try to force itself on the rest of us.
We need organizations that celebrate Spirituality and unify, through music and community service, so people have access to spiritual gatherings with no control-freak leaders or religious dogma.
5
I disagree. The author speaks of community. There are many of us in the LGBT community who had to form our own communities precisely because religion rejected them. Also I think he underestimates Bill Nye and Neal deGrasse Tyson. Does he really think they would go on a science geek rant at a time when consolation is needed. No, they would offer sympathy, albeit sympathy not cloaked in untruths. If they offered a science perspective, I think they could (as they have) put death into perspective. One thing science does not do is lie about what is not known. It doesn't make up stories about what happens after the human life cycle finishes in order to mollify a woman who wants to believe that her child is waiting in human form on the other side of an undefined barrier. Religious people are conditioned by religion to need religion. Most of them could use a big dose of science to truly contemplate our place in the universe, and to revel in the mystery and the complexity.
6
I struggle like the author about the meaning of religion. I agree with the author that religion can sometimes be a positive force. One positive aspect the author does mention is that religion can lead people to be compassionate and giving to other humans.
The author has a narrow view of religion. He posits that it invariably requires irrational belief and thus is in conflict with science and modernism. He does allow that it can help people connect, and be socially and psychologically beneficial. Which is true, of course, but only part of it.
His perspective would benefit from looking at the work done by the Mind and Life Institute, where scientists and advanced Buddhist practitioners dialogue. It is well established at this point that some "religious" practices like mindfulness and compassion meditation can actually change brain function and structure in beneficial ways. This is measurable using brain imaging technology.How we learn to use our minds is the key to our personal development of wisdom and compassion. This is not superstition. It is established fact.
4
As an atheist, I’m not opposed to someone engaging in a little magical thinking in order to buffer the pains of life. But where do we draw the line? Magical thinking refuses to be confined to the individual; it escalates; it has a mob mentality.
Religion convinces us to surrender our collective human agency to a higher power so that we don’t have to take responsibility for our human condition. Religion’s greatest hustle: Pass the buck to Providence. When mass shootings happen we can simply say: “God works in mysterious ways.” It’s out of our hands; nothing we can do. But there is something we can do. If we don’t do it who will? People are all we have to run societies and to make effective, practical decisions.
Further, religion is too easily exploited for non-religious ends. When we surrender our personal agency, it leaves us vulnerable to be preyed upon by people who will seize that agency instead. Historically, religion has been less about buffering pain, and more about securing power and controlling the behavior of others. Religion has been the tool of male power brokers like a Falwell or a Trump, who game religion, offering balm to our suffering with one hand while robbing us blind with the other. Under cover of religion, priests molest children because magical thinking obfuscates the brutality of reality and drains us of agency.
We unleash magical thinking at our collective peril. Want emotional management? Turn to other people - or maybe a little marijuana.
8
It is not Religion itself that is so damaging to humanity. It is those that manipulate it as a source of power and control over others. It is the obscenity of a $54 million corporate jet.
4
'Religion' means either (a) god story myth or (b) organizations for marketing the myth.
(a) "Theos+logos" was coined by Plato to refer to Greek god mythology. Plato preferred Aesop--as pedagogy. God stories are often good adult fiction--often with verisimilitude--revealing much about human nature the world. But don't confuse verisimilitude with truth.
We shield kids from the human dark side--to teach ideals--redacting, for example the Pauline/Christian idea of torturing and killing Jesus as atonement, but emphasizing the Golden Rule.
Later in life Plato recognized that the Socratic "Examined Life"--critical thinking about everything--was not for everyone--many adults need mythology.
So Plato created an expurgated god story myth ("Timaeus"). Augustine ("City of God") five centuries later plagiarized that story, beginning the Scholastic's rationalization of philosophy and Biblical god stories--an expurgated Christianity. Still a myth--Plato would insist.
Augustine also recognized Varro (a Roman graduate of Plato's Academy): religion had a civic function--myth buttressing civility (divine right of kings etc.).
That would be "State Religion" (Church of England).
But organizations like autonomy and monopoly. Thus "Religious States"--theocracies ("god-rule" camouflages "religion rule"). The tail wags the dog.
Yes--god stories could be politically, personally and pedagogically good.
Let's create them. Skip the cerebral geography.
1
Five centuries post Jesus; ten post Plato.
With all due respect, professor, I doubt you were "pompously" lecturing your students regarding monotheism; I suspect you were lecturing them, period. Further, while I have little doubt that religion and/or other forms of magical thinking can be comforting to someone suffering the kind of mother's grief you describe, I have no doubt that behaviors directly informed by such thinking is responsible for much, if not most, of such suffering throughout human history.
Religion being defended by philosophy: religion has fallen on hard ties indeed.
Some great philosophers defended religion: St Augustine, St Anselm, St Thomas Aquinas. Today very distinguished philosophers defend it: Alvin Plantinga, Peter van Imwagen,
They defend not revealed religion, but construct important and rational arguments for the existence and goodness of God: the ontological argument, the cosmological argument. These arguments are alive and well today.
Magical thinking isn’t a solution to or a strategy for dealing with anything - it’s delusional. Encouraging and rationalizing it in yourself or others is merely evasive and dishonest
4
What kind of philosophy professor hadn’t already figured out that people want to believe in an afterlife?
2
I've met a variety of atheists in my life. Some were born into it. Belief in Odin makes no more sense to them than belief in Jedi Knights.
Some are just angry theists. It's not that they don't believe that there are no gods; they are just angry at the one that they think jilted them.
Then there are the weak-minded, like the current author. They know better than to believe in gods, but they like the way it makes them and others feel. Well, they suppose that others feel good. They don't really know that for certain.
The better way to look at the condition of atheism is to admit that everybody is an atheist, or a sub-atheist. Everybody believes that there are gods that do not exist. Baptists forswear Ganesha. Hindus turn away from Amaterasu. And the devout Satanist scoffs at Fek'lhr, the Guardian of Gre'thor.
(Super-)Atheists simply believe that choosing one fiction over all of the others makes no sense. It might make you feel good (for a while) to believe that Thor actually is a god, and that he works for Stan Lee, but that makes it no more true than believing that Ambush Bug is actually the Supreme Being, and much funnier.
We don't need religion. We never did. But maybe you do, Mr. Asma. Just pick the right one or your ka will never arise as an akh and frolic with the gods.
No, religion is not “the most powerful response to the emotional”.... Love is.
1
The belief in love being the most powerful thing of all is in itself a religious belief. See I Corinthians 13.
1
Religion should make us uncomfortable when we sing our praises.
2
"No proof"?! Where's he been for the last 50 years? God is the best explanation for the origin of the universe, time, and space in the finite past; He is the best explanation for the fine-tuning of the laws of physics; and He is the best explanation for the existence of objective moral values and duties.
What's more, the great majority of historians acknowledge Jesus' death by crucifixion, his burial, the empty tomb, his disciples' honest conviction that that had seen Him alive again, and the explosive growth of the church among a population very familiar with the events. The best explanation for these facts is the Resurrection. See Michael Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (IVP Academic 2010).
Evidence? You're swimming in it!
Thomas Alderman
4
"Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace,..."
by John Lennon
the key words for me are "nothing to kill or die for."
5
If nothing is worth dying for, then nothing is worth living for.
This is nonsense. As we move away from communities based on religious beliefs and rituals, we need communities that perform some of the supportive and healing functions that many religious communities perform. We need to be able to organize people to support each other emotionally and help each other through tough times. But that doesn't mean we need the religious content in order to do that.
People who have left religion often do miss the community and support they used to have. Our ability as a society to organize those lags behind our ability to say that religious beliefs are unfounded, silly, harmful or dangerous. We need to bridge the gap and reach out to each other in different ways, not keep the beliefs that do so much harm.
I'd feel much more comfortable accepting whatever religion has to offer if I could distinguish religious conviction from delusional illness.
Organized religions, at least the Abrahamic varieties, have been a bane for humans for millennia. More people have suffered and died propagating the beliefs of their religion than because of any other man-made cause. And, to what end, other than to imprison people, physically and intellectually?
1
Scandinavians - among the happiest people on the planet - are also among the least religious. Magical thinking is not a basic human need.
1
It is easy to find examples of evil done in the name of religion. It is also easy to find examples of good done in the name of religion - people who have selflessly given their time and treasure, sometimes their lives, in the effort to help others. If you think the world would be a better place without religion, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I would like to sell you. With or without religion, people will be cruel to each other, because we are basically selfish and tribal creatures, looking out for our own and caring nothing for the "other". Religion attempts to counter this tendency in us. Jesus taught that we are to love our enemies, care for the stranger, feed the hungry, visit the sick. When it is used as a guide for personal conduct, religion does great good in the world. When it is used as a way to gain political power over others, it does great evil. True Christianity teaches humility and service to others.
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I don't think you understand the basic problem with religion. I support allowing complete religious freedom but they don't. They believe they have to impose their religions on the rest of us. Here is a good example.
The emboldened religious right has unleashed a wave of legislation across the United States since Donald Trump became president, as part of an organised bid to impose hardline Christian values across American society.
A playbook known as Project Blitz, developed by a collection of Christian groups, has provided state politicians with a set of off-the-shelf pro-Christian “model bills”.
Some legislation uses verbatim language from the “model bills’” created by a group called the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation (CPCF), set up by a former Republican congressman which has a stated aim to “protect religious freedom, preserve America’s Judeo-Christian heritage and promote prayer”.
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It's well known by most children that cuddling a teddy bear will also bring you comfort. The big difference is that the teddy bear is a real teddy bear; you can see and touch it. It's there when you go to sleep and wake up. Invisible magical beings on the other hand...
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We can receive effective comfort, empathy, and consolation from other people without having to have a mythical intermediary.
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With all due respect, but being a philosopher myself, I cannot be but shocked by the insulting conception of religion proposed in this op-ed by a colleague.
There is not ONE single link to nor scientific evidence of the basic assumption of this piece, namely that religions would be by definition "irrational" and "irritating the rational brain".
So what this piece is asking religious people to do, is to accept that we'll call ourselves (I'm an agnostic) "rational" without giving ANY proof (nor even a definition of rationality, to start with) and reject them as being "irrational".
And then we'll add that of course, as they're more dominated by their "reptilian and mammal" brain regions than we are, we superior human beings leading our lives based on the higher neocortex region, we'll tolerate that they use irrational techniques just to be able to survive with those "lower" brain regions.
All these ideas are unworthy of a philosopher, who, as Plato already wrote, is someone cultivating a "terrible love of the truth".
It also helps explaining why so many religious Americans hate the "human sciences" departments and even start rejecting science, because you don't need to be a philosopher to see that this kind of arrogant and false presumptions are literally fake science.
The only way to get conservatives respect science again, is to stop claiming, as liberal philosophers, that merely subjective and even false opinions would somehow be rational or scientific.
Yes we can!
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Do you think that, for a belief to be rational, it needs to be based on good evidence? If so, do you think that there is good evidence for God?
Most organized religion posits that a male, human god created a human male in HIS own image, to dominate the world. Then, a female was created from his rib to keep him company. (Oh, good- I knew there had to be a reason for women). Then a talking snake convinced evil Eve to want knowledge (of course: I knew everything bad that followed had to be the woman's fault). This myth is egocentric and Narcissistic in the extreme. It works against the true understanding that life is a cycle, and death is natural- for ALL species, including us. It works in favor of blind authority, discouraging our right to be curious and to question.
There are "religious" people who take deep comfort in the myth that they are somehow superior because of their skin color. Being comforted by lies will always be dangerous, and take people farther from the true source of comfort: knowing themselves. Meditation, and coming to terms with mind, can really help.
Hi!
I got goosebumps from the student story.
Let the scoffers scoff.
ciao!
It's true that religious belief and practice can provide emotional support in times of extreme stress, but there major downsides to the individual and to society.
The major negative impact comes from a fundamental inability to separate fantasy from reality. Objective knowledge and truth about the world external to mind is dependent on empirical, validated, observational, factual evidence. Religious belief in supernatural entities totally avoids a requirement for such objective knowledge, and therefore permits easy acceptance of personal feelings and non fact based opinions to stand with equal weight against fact based knowledge.
Such fantastical thinking can lead individuals and societies to ruin, as witnessed by continued high support for a President who, at last count, has told over 3,000 lies since taking office.
When emotion trumps truth and knowledge, beware.
As you noted, religion promotes magical thinking
Hate to bring it up, but this is the age of Trump. Many people, particularly white religious people, seem to find comfort and affirmation in believing harmful lies. Beliefs that explain away pain (Brown people are ruining our lives! White people are persecuted! The rich will help us! Environmental regulations have hurt us!) bring on those endorphins. Everyone at the rally is comforted and feels better about their trials and tribulations, at what cost to the rest of us? Religious comfort without religious ethics.
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Given the complexity of natural and human history, a belief in some kind of god actually makes sense. But organized religion is more a matter of using fear and superstition to maintain patriarchy and corruption. We see the results all around us even now, from evangelicals for Trump, to child abuse, to ISIS, to the ultra-orthodox of all sects and cults denying education to women, and on and on. Enough is enough.
There is a belief in the possibility of a 'god' and then there are religions as 'codified superstition'. The two are not closely correlated.
All religions are concoctions of lies designed to gain or maintain social. political and emotional control of a community, a nation or the world. Nothing of worth is built on lies; even with the occasional benefit of a psychological 'placebo effect'.
The non-existence of 'god' cannot be proven so the possibility exists that there is a 'god'. If such does exist I wonder what it would say of 'religion'?
You're correct. Its a bad time for this. Perhaps when (if) we recover from Trump and company put in power by the "reptilian brains" of otherwise good people, you should try again. Teaching children that wanting something to be true is equivalent to it actually being true is overtly dangerous. That is the mechanism by which people can listen to someone who constantly lies and believe anything that they say.
I have a darker view of human reason. I think its benefits have been vastly oversold. What if human reason is itself corrupt, corrupted perhaps by the sin of pride? Exclusive reliance on reason as the way to make decisions is dangerous. There is safety in diversification. Poetic insight and mystical experience should also have a place along with reason in making decisions.
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As is often the case, Shakespeare says it best:
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
- Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio
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Is a young man was walking around now saying I am the son of God; believe in me and you will live forever; and I will die and come back in three days, almost every one of us would call him deluded. He was deluded, sorry, but just because it happened 2000 years ago doesn’t mean the guy wasn’t deluded.
Religion is the original fake news. Like fake news it can console and inspire but does do using falsehoods. I don't expect it to be rational but it is dishonest.
Religion would also be classified as hate speech by those who believe that such a thing as hate speech exists. Every religion makes a tacit claim to uniqueness and supremacy because lets face it why would anyone bother with a religion that is second best or as good as the others. If you read through the most successful religious texts you will find precisely the kinds of exhortations that you would accuse supremacists of spreading. People are not good because of their religions but despite them. Those religions are moderates whose followers (hypocritically) ignore their central tenets because of their intelligence and education. Terrorists often have the most literal interpretation of a religion.
Religion is paternalistic. By giving permission to people to have intercourse it attempts to controls which woman is respectable and which one is not. It controls reproductive rights, marriage, clothing i.e. the things that the worst of humanity try to control in the lives of others.
As a cheap analgesic it may have been ok but my contention is that it is not so cheap.
Religion is not rational, you say, but religion is far more rational than the alternative. On the really big questions like what is beyond death or what is consciousness, science comes up very short.
Many thousands of people all through the ages have received answers to the big questions—in deep meditation, in near death experiences, in waking visitations. But scientists discount such experiences because they have not invented instruments that can capture them and print them on a piece of paper. To me, that is the height of irrationality.
(One aside: In future, please do not limit your enquiries to the Abrahamic religions, as people who write these kinds of articles always do. Abrahamic beliefs function as straw men which are easy to knock down.)
Of course the scientist will defend by saying something like, “Ah, but I have had such experiences while contemplating the vastness of the universe.” Dear scientist, unless your experience came in a radiant flash of insight, on wings of the most perfect unconditional love, in which you became one with the whole universe, you do not know what you are claiming.
Following the example of the scientists, I have decided to make a little money by advertising myself as an expert on China. Only one small problem, though. I have yet to take my first trip to China.
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Sorry to disappoint you but NYT is not equipped to "please do not limit your enquiries to the Abrahamic religions, as people who write these kinds of articles always do."
Time and time again, NYT writers columnists and op-ed contributors portray a human world as though everyone and everything originated from the Greeks or Romans. They completely ignore the east and the ancient world, their rich wisdom. So we are all left to start history from Greek/Roman point of view and repeat their mistakes and reinvent the wheel, when so much was already known to the ancient civilizations of the east.
It is as though they view the world with one eye, they miss out of the whole perspective. It is a very deficient ineffective way of viewing the world, and explains the current dissonance, resort to violence and inability to accept the commonality of all existence.
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This story takes something simple and tries to make it complicated. The reality is simple: Our intellect tells us that death is inevitable, and our emotions can't deal with non-existence. This conflict forces our minds to do a sleight-of-hand and invent an afterlife.