If you've read some of my other writings, especially my political ones, you might get the impression that I'm anti-religion. Just so that there will be no confusion on where I stand on this subject, I'll spell out my religious views on this page.
I'm an atheist. I don't believe in God or in any kind of supreme being. I believe that Jesus Christ was a man and not the son of God (or at least, no more the son of God than anybody else). I agree with many of Jesus' teachings, but that doesn't mean I grant him (or anyone else) divine status. If you ask me who created the universe, I would have to answer that (a) I don't know, and (b) I'm not even sure that the question makes any sense.
More to the point, however, I just don't consider the question of whether God exists or not to be very interesting. I don't see any evidence to support the view that God exists, and I don't see any way to definitively resolve the issue one way or the other, so I'd rather spend my time thinking about other things.
My main concern with respect to religion is that nobody should be able to impose their religious beliefs on anyone else. This used to be so ingrained in our culture that it didn't even need to be mentioned (it's part of the First Amendment to the Constitution), but with the increasing influence of fundamentalist religious organizations which are very fascistic in nature, it does need to be mentioned now.
I don't consider my religious views to be anybody's business but my own. I don't consider anybody else's religious views to be any of my business. As long as everyone leaves everyone else alone with respect to their religious beliefs (or lack thereof), I'm happy.
Although I'm an atheist, there are some religions I like less than others. Here are the aspects of certain religions that bug me.
I don't like religions that value faith over facts.
As a scientist, I consider people who accept tenets of their religious faith that are contradicted by objectively verifiable facts to be misguided, and those who encourage others to do the same to be downright dangerous. This is most clearly seen in the evolution-vs-creationism (or, as it's now called, "intelligent design") debates. The fact is that there is a ton of evidence supporting the concept of evolutionary processes, and there is no evidence whatsoever for creationism or "intelligent design". When faced with two systems of thought, one of which is supported by a mountain of evidence and another which has no supporting evidence at all, which should we choose? Just because every last detail of how evolutionary processes hasn't been worked out doesn't constitute evidence for "intelligent design".
I don't like religions that believe in the literal truth of ancient religious texts.
Old religious texts like the Bible, the Torah, the Koran etc. can be used for many purposes, but they shouldn't be treated as literally true unless there is evidence to support such a position. These texts have much to offer in terms of their commentary on ethics, but to take e.g. creation myths from such texts as literal fact is just ridiculous, especially when there is direct evidence to the contrary. I challenge anyone to reconcile carbon dating with the notion that the world is only about six thousand years old (a view held by some so-called authorities on the Bible). You can't, because it's just a fact that the world is vastly older than that.
I don't like religions that meddle in politics.
As the First Amendment to the Constitution states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". Separation of church and state is one of the truly great ideas of America's founding fathers. However, many religious organizations don't seem to like the U.S. Constitution very much, as they continually try to subvert this amendment. A very blatant example of this happened during the 2004 presidential election campaign, where many ministers of various churches urged their parishioners to vote for George Bush. I believe that religious organizations that get directly involved in politics should immediately lose their tax-exempt status. That doesn't mean that (for example) ministers can't campaign for a political organization. It does mean that they can't use their religious position to try to impose their political views on others of their faith, or to threaten those who disagree with their political views with retribution (e.g. expulsion from their church).
I don't like religions that preach bigotry or hatred.
Religions preaching bigotry and hatred have a history as old as religion itself. The most glaring recent example is the virulent anti-gay bigotry coming from many fundamentalist right-wing religious organizations. I'm not sure what would satisfy these people -- do they want gays to be put to death? Or quarantined? Or "forced" to become heterosexual (whatever that means)? Of course, this is only one aspect of religious bigotry. Other aspects include hatred of all other religions, hatred of atheists, and so on. It's all wrong.
I despise religions that advocate violence.
This should require no explanation. There are few concepts more offensive than the concept of a "holy war". Religion should prevent people from killing each other, not encourage them to do so.
I don't like religions that want to convert everyone on the planet to their way of thinking.
Unfortunately, a lot of organized religions are mainly concerned with increasing their power, and the way to expand a religion's power base is to have more and more people who practice the religion. Therefore, many religions go to great lengths to bring new people into the religion. There are two ways to do this. One way is to simply make your religious views accessible to others (say, on a web site) and invite anyone who is interested in joining your religion to contact you. That's fine. Another way is to actively try to convert people who have shown no interest in joining your religion. I object to this because it's coercive. My mother used to give money to a religious organization that knocked on her door every month just to get rid of them (she didn't have the self-confidence to tell them to get lost). Worse than this, a great many religions teach their followers that they are the One True Faith, and that everyone who does not practice their faith will burn in hell for all eternity. This is an obvious power play, and it also gets back to the bigotry issue I mentioned above.
I don't like religious leaders who believe that they are in possession of the absolute truth all the time.
It should be obvious that nobody knows the absolute truth, and only ignorant people think they do. Science gets us closer to the truth, but we are a long way from being able to understand everything. Therefore, the notion that a religious leader could be "infallible" or "always right" is deeply offensive to me.
I don't like religious leaders who claim to talk directly to God.
It's hard to take someone seriously when he says something like "I was talking to God last night, and he impressed upon me the importance of getting our own cable TV network to help spread our faith, and he asked me to ask all of you to donate generously to this cause." Some religious leaders apparently think that their followers are complete idiots who will believe anything (and, sadly, they are often right). I don't respect liars, and I don't respect people who are so gullible that they can't even tell when they are being blatantly lied to.
I don't like religions that expect their followers to blindly submit to the authority of their leaders.
Any leader (religious, political, or otherwise) who demands blind obedience is dangerous, and anyone who follows such a leader is a fool. Real leaders are able to handle questions and tolerate dissent. Demagogues aren't.
I don't like religions that advocate socially harmful practices just because it increases their power base.
The classic example of this is religious leaders who prohibit their followers from using birth control pills or devices. The real reason for this (all rationalizations aside) is that they want their followers to have as many children as possible because that increases their power base. The fact that this causes serious social harm in overpopulated countries doesn't seem to bother these religious leaders. And that's wrong.
I don't like religions that are anti-sex.
Sex is a natural part of life. However, a great many religions are anti-sex. They preach abstinence as the cure-all for all sexual problems (never mind the fact that abstinence has a really lousy track record). I'm not in favor of promiscuity, but to label all sex (or all sex that isn't directly connected to having children, or all sex out of wedlock) as evil is stupid and wrong. If there is a God, then He must have given us sex for a reason, and I don't think it was in order to torture us or to test our faith. For the same reason, I dislike religions that don't allow their priests or ministers to marry (and there is a lot of objective evidence of the harm that this has caused). Fortunately, there are a number of religions that have a more realistic and enlightened attitude towards sex -- I wish them well.
Of all religious questions, none generates more heat and less light than the abortion question. I think this is one of those questions that can never be resolved. I personally am strongly pro-choice; I believe that whether or not a woman has an abortion is a decision for her to make, and it's none of society's business. Nevertheless, I also feel that abortion is the worst form of birth control, and that the emphasis shouldn't be on making abortion illegal, it should be on making it rare. This can be done by making birth control readily available and by foregoing the misguided emphasis on abstinence, which is doomed to failure (people will continue to have sex, even unprotected sex out of wedlock, no matter what anyone does). I won't argue the question of whether abortion itself is immoral; I don't think so, but I can understand why some people would (especially with regard to late term abortions).
Of the organized religions I'm familiar with, I find Judaism the least distasteful. If I had to convert to a religion, that's probably the one I would choose. The Jewish faith values education highly, and they also seem to be fairly indifferent to increasing their numbers. They seem to feel as if they're an exclusive club, and if you want to join you had better prove that you are worthy of them. I find that a refreshing change from religions that are constantly trying to convert everyone in sight. As for other religions, I've also found Unitarians to be pretty decent people, and I have to give the United Church kudos for running an ad recently proclaiming that they accept everyone into their church, including gays. I also don't have any problem with religious beliefs that are basically just a kind of diffuse spirituality.
A lot of people seem to think that atheists can't be moral people. I consider myself to be an extremely moral person. I'll put my morality up against anybody else's any day of the week. Morality shouldn't be about piety or church attendance; it should be about good deeds and doing the right thing. I try to help people as much as I can, and I don't take advantage of people who are less fortunate than me. Compassion and caring are values that are not restricted to those who practice religion.
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Last updated January 23, 2008 |
Mike Vanier (mvanier@cs.caltech.edu)