On Being a True Believer
People often speak of the ‘true believer’ as a litmus test for those who are not ‘doing it right,’ whatever the it might be. And some of these claims often sound reasonable enough. Like whenever someone says: They are not a true believer, because Jesus said to love your fellow man; or Islam is a religion of peace; or as recently claimed to me by another atheist, the tenets of that religion are well defined, so that person is doing it wrong.
But while well meaning, these are all half-examined statements — at best.
After all, we humans often get a certain warm, fuzzy feeling about ‘belief’ and the goodness of some ideas such as the existence of a god and a heaven. This is our positive bias — which often colors our reading and thinking, and makes it difficult to readily identify contradictory, or negative statements. The holy books of many religions (if not all of them) contain many different kinds of statements. Not all of them warm, and fuzzy. (It’s no surprise, here, why religious leadership seldom deviates from presenting certain verses during worship services.) We can go verify these things for ourselves. There are websites, such as the The Annotated Skeptic’s Bible (which now has a Koran, and a Book of Moron), which categorizes the nature of scriptural statements, as well as offering them in context. Many are, by the standards of our modern society, primitive, cruel, ignorant, violent, sexist, homophobic, judgmental, or threatening, etc. This is not to say that these books are inherently bad — but it speaks for what they are: the diverse writings of a primitive people still struggling to define their world views, their social mores and ethics, and who lacked a modern scientific context for their observed reality. So controversial are these writings, that there are entire schools dedicated to explaining away their context, as well as defending their inerrancy — and even defining what is meant by inerrancy, to begin with! (What does it mean when the Bible is inerrant? It turns out, Christians can’t even agree on that.)
Of course, not everyone agrees that the Bible is inerrant — in whatever context or definition that is meant. And it is not uncommon when a believer cracks open a holy book and becomes SHOCKED at what they read. They thus decide “These writings do not represent me and my spiritually at all,” and begin courting with other forms of spirituality, or with non-belief. Such seems to be the case with a group of men who were recently interviewed on NPR’s All Things Considered. They were unhappy with things they read in the Bible (as not supportive of their current life challenges) or with the conservative stances of the churches of their upbringing. So, they decided to just go off and do their own thing, where they still get to believe — but they can believe whatever it is they want to believe. Mainly, the warm and fuzzy things. While they cuss, and drink beer. They’ve called themselves ‘Bad Christians,’ ‘Drunk Ex-Pastors,’ etc. Whatever is controversial, or calls for a laugh.
Apparently, to at least one of these men, “ the church was too dogmatic, but atheism was too dismissive of their need for mystery and, frankly, things spiritual.”
This is really quite funny to me, because it’s a hotbed of irony. It really underlies the rub of the matter —that there is no such thing as categorically true when it comes to religious belief. For if they get to just define what is true for them, and then just dump the rest, then it’s no longer categorically true, but merely true by their own definition. If one can define good for oneself, and leave the rest of a religion behind… what does one have left? If one has to be a poor adherent of the religion, in order to be a good adherent… then what is the point of claiming that religion?
Up to WHAT point can a religion be subjectively followed, and still claim to be a religion? And if all religion is subjective, whence comes its claim of authority?
Can’t we just do our own thing? One can still be in complete and utter AWE of the mysteries of the universe, without having to inject magic and special genies or fairies into the narrative. Can’t we? Or do we still think of the Taíno god, Juracán, whenever we are awed at the power of a massive hurricane when it threatens the coast? What? Never heard of him, you say? Exactly. It isn’t necessary. We don’t think gods cause hurricanes (most of us, anyway). We think of the science of meteorology, and of warm and cold fronts. While awe-striking, and impressive, the answer to the many mysteries of our universe has never once turned out to be magic.
And people have been getting unhappy with their religion, or their church, since the dawn of time — and then going off and doing their own thing, and sometimes by the edge of a sword. Just ask Mohammed.
Disagreeing used to be controversial, ostracizing, and even deadly. But it’s now the fashionable thing. One can disagree on whether Jesus was the son of a god, or on who was the proper successor for Mohammad, or on whether or not one is allowed to be divorced, etc. They sky is the limit. Heck, one can even, believe ALL religions are true. Never mind that this is a violation of the Law of Non-contradiction, if there ever was one — but who’s thinking, when one can just believe.
For whatever tenet previously seen as ‘essential’ to being a member of a said religion, there has been a division, and a separation into a new denomination. For Christianity in particular, as of 2014, there were around 45,000 denominations all over the world. This hardly speaks of ‘consensus’ and of a ‘true believer.’ At best, all one can say is that ‘a believer’ is someone who says ‘I believe in this religion.’ That is it. As long as the looking glass changes, other than someone claiming ‘I am a Christian,’ or ‘I am a Muslim,’ we cannot say someone is a true believer. Just that they are a Christian, or a Muslim, etc. We’d have to define what true is first. We cannot simply assume that following the positive bits of a religion are what makes a believer a true follower, either… for we would also have to define what are the positive bits, and as long there is a change in the zeitgeist of what is positive for the well-being of a society, that will also change. After all, there was once a time when it was predominantly seen as positive to keep certain populations, such as slaves and homosexuals, under constraints, and women in subservience to man. And some groups still believe these things. One believer might feel that positive is when we love everyone, unconditionally; another might feel that positive is ‘saving’ people from the perils of hell, and that love is shown by confronting their ‘sins,’ not merely accepting a person.
And what am I getting at, here, with all of this — isn’t it just the point that people want to be more loving, more empathetic, more welcoming, less judgmental? That there are less of the dogmatic people, nowadays, anyway?
Yes. That is exactly the point. That we can be those things, and we positively do NOT need religion to be those things. We can easily have and define these things on our own, from our own values. Our morality comes from our own social evolution, and the values we pass on to our children. For when we grow in our understanding of others, and what is hurtful for society, we do not need to appeal to either the rules of religion, nor to the supernatural.
If one needs to be a poorly adherent believer, and inject own’s own narrative into belief — then what’s the difference between this, and not believing at all? And just doing good, for goodness’ sake?
Religion and belief are thus, superfluous. Unnecessary. Occam’s Razor.
We, as humans, have been slowly cutting off ALL of the superfluous notions within religions when they have disagreed with our values. When they have hampered our progress, and our empathy for fellow man. Notions which often also, dampen our need to keep questioning the mysterious nature of our universe. If your need to understand mystery means you need to inject magic into the equation — then you’ve stopped questioning.
And why stop questioning here. Just keep cutting.
