What’s the Problem?

The Problem is that we tend to behave in ways that cause pain to ourselves and others. We have a lot of proposed answers on hand. Christianity offers a solution. Islam and Scientology each offer their own. Each of these religions claims a monopoly on their framing of the Problem, and therefore on the Solution; and in a pluralistic society, that really is a problem, neatly summarized by Christopher Hitchens:

“Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.”

I think this is important to keep in mind. Christianity offers only one of many ways of approaching this fundamental problem, of how to treat ourselves and others better. But I think the best progressive Christian answers are a result not of theology but of secular reason; call it Enlightenment values, which the Christian churches fought with sword and pyre right up until they lost. As Giordano Bruno said, mocking the Christians who burned him alive for suggesting that stars are distant suns, “perhaps you pronounce this sentence against me with greater fear than I receive it.” I like to think that Bruno saw the cosmic turning point here: the replacement of Christian values with secular ones. The dawn of the Age of Reason.

Yet the problem remains the same: people tend to behave in ways which cause pain to themselves and others. I wrestle with this, daily. Ironically, I find it much easier to be kind to others than to myself, which is a problem in itself.

Most of what Christians say on this subject is very much in line with what an atheist or Buddhist might say about the problem of will and suffering. But for some reason, progressive Christians are not content to approach the problem with the best tools we have at our disposal: philosophy, endocrinology and neurology, etc. Religion was humanity’s first attempt at all of these, and therefore our worst, our most primitive. We now actually know what causes epileptic seizures of the sort Jesus encountered in Matthew 17 (hint: it’s not demonic possession).

Yet Christians seem to want to smuggle in all these old-fashioned Christian concepts of sin and scapegoating (tell me Jesus can be better described, in light of the whole arc of the Hebrews’ long history with the practice, as the ultimate scapegoat). I think progressives do this for old times’ sake. Because they somehow think they can’t have the gorgeous cathedrals and inspiring music and community without adhering to bronze-age concepts about putting the sins of the tribe on the goat and driving it into the wilderness. I think we can. I think we can build temples to the human spirit, to philosophy, to reason (we call some of these research universities, and I consider the great ones to be some of the most sacred sites on the planet). I wish progressive Christians would join the rest of us in this universal quest, rather than preferring their own, closed-off club, with its secret handshakes and religious tests for membership. It makes those of us outside the church think Christians are only coming up with solutions to problems of their own making. Buddhists are dealing with the exact same problem, and they require nothing more to join their club than an open mind. The same cannot be said of Christianity.

If this really is about mitigating suffering for ourselves and others, is a human sacrifice in the Middle East really the best we can do? I think a ‘no’ here, even by someone who calls themselves a Christian, really is a rejection of Christianity (not a rejection of goodness, but simply of the Christian answer to the problem; I just don’t think a scapegoat gets us very far toward utopia, unless it’s an imagined one in the sky). All the beautiful language and ceremony can’t get one away from the simplicity of the Christian answer to the problem: a human sacrifice in the desert, which you did not choose, and would’ve been morally obligated to stop if you were there.

If there is no Yahweh, then there is no Sin. I did not say forces infinitely more powerful than us; I mean the asshole who ordered genocides and genital mutilation, and rewarded Moses for giving 32,000 prisoners of war over to his army to use as sex slaves [Numbers 31:35]. ‘Sin’ is really only a separation from that god’s will. Meaning if Yahweh does not exist, then there is no Righteous Divine Anger, there is no Grace, and we need no Scapegoat. We’re simply left to learn to treat ourselves and one another better, using the collective knowledge and wisdom of all our fellow humans, as best understood through science. I’d prefer to do that together, rather than at odds with those who prefer religious answers to the problem. More than that, I think we must do better. I see real danger in maintaining some of these ideas, centuries after they’ve run their course. I think Carl Sagan said it flawlessly:

“I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us — then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls. The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.”