Beliefs Matter: When Richard Dawkins and I Agree
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We believe that all religions are basically the same-
at least the one that we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of creation,
sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.
Steven Turner, “Creed”
I’ve been thinking of this passage from journalist Steven Turner’s satirical poem ever since reading Rosalynde Welch’s excellent blog yesterday. Karen Armstrong’s suggestion that somehow religion is improved by a loss of religious belief …well, it gives me a headache. What world does Armstrong live in, that she thinks people of religious faith will happily and knowingly accept a spiritual placebo - a God who doesn’t exist, but is terribly important, nonetheless? Does anyone else find this condescending? I need more than metaphor and folklore to help me grapple with the big questions of meaning, ethics and mortality. I enjoy Santa Claus as much as the next person, but I wouldn’t build my life on him.
And so I find myself appreciating Richard Dawkin’s reality check. “Tell the congregation of a church or mosque that existence is too vulgar an attribute to fasten onto their God, and they will brand you an atheist. They’ll be right.” As a Christian, I know what Dawkins thinks of me, and it’s not good. But at least he recognizes that I have established my life on something I believe to be real. Armstrong draws a distinction between mythos and logos, but as a Christian, I believe they came together in the person of Jesus Christ. The deep longings which we often describe in myth and allegory were met by a real man, flesh and blood, living in history. And He is, as the book of Philippians tells us, the image of the invisible - but very real - God.
Respect for the depth and diversity of spiritual belief is critical to an endeavor like Civil Religion. It’s become common in the last several decades to try to improve interreligious dialogue by pretending that below the surface we all believe the same things. Or if Armstrong is correct, we ultimately believe in nothing at all. The distinctions between faiths are just poetic veneers covering our shared belief in love and the brotherhood of mankind. Right? Well. While I think it’s true that most religions value love, there are vast areas of difference. To pretend that the differences don’t exist, or that the spiritually enlightened can see through them, seems disingenuous - at best.
I once spent a very interesting couple of hours at a homeschool play day talking to a mom named Sadie. Sadie identified herself as a pagan and explained to me why she had rejected Christianity and turned to paganism despite being raised in the church. I shared my own story of why I had returned to Christ and the church, despite being raised as a pastor’s kid (there’s a joke in there somewhere). If someone overhearing us had told us that ultimately we were on the same path, sharing the same “important” beliefs, I think we would either have laughed or felt that we had not been heard correctly. And neither of us would have felt respected by that fictional third party.
So here are couple of principles I’m nailing to the door here at Civil Religion:
- If I say I believe something, I mean that I believe it. I don’t mean that it appeals to me as an allegory or that I wish it were so. I mean that I believe it corresponds to external reality. You are free to think that my beliefs show me to be stupid or insane or wicked, but please do me the courtesy of at least taking them seriously. Fellow bloggers and commenters, I will show you the same respect that I ask of you.
- We can be worlds apart in belief without hostility. Not only do I think we can be civil with each other, I think we can do better than mere civility. Sadie was my friend, and our divergent worldviews didn’t need to get in the way. Sadie didn’t see my Christian faith as an attack on her, nor did I see her embrace of paganism as an affront to me. We enjoyed each other’s company, enjoyed hearing each other’s ideas - even enjoyed trying to persuade each other. I hope that same attitude of enjoyment and mutual respect carries on here at Civil Religion. Religious belief, even dogmatic belief, is not synonymous with intolerance.
It’s a point well made. As a pagan, I often cringe when I hear others of us try too hard for good PR sake to say that our belief systems are all really at root, the same. They are not.
I think an argument can be made that all, or at least a great many, different tradtions can be valid approaches for different people in relating to divinity. To me it’s supremely arrogant for any group or person to insist they know the fullness of God(s) will and hold the trademark on truth because they happen to own a book or revelation written by other humans or some superior wisdom the rest of us don’t possess. It’s also a virtual guarantee of genocide.
That doesn’t require decent into relativism or belief that everything is equally true, but it does require a measure of humility to admit that the truth may well be far more complex than any one of us can see, and that your path up the mountain might not be the only one or the best one for everyone else.
I wholeheartedly support those two principles, well said!
Kenneth - thanks for the comments. I recently ran across the phrase “hermeneutic of humility” and I really like it. Hermeneutic just refers to how we interpret scripture, and “hermeneutic of humility” carries the idea that in my approach to the Bible I will get some things wrong. It’s a given. For the same reason I also like to aim at being a “modest, moderate chastened” Christian - to borrow from yet another writer. I’ve been wrong before, and undoubtedly will be again. Humility makes it possible to be deeply Christian without being imperialistic in my approach to others.
And thanks, Adam!
Sharon, I have a thought that may help you understand Armstrong better, but first a question. At some level, wasn’t it absurd that God had His own Son killed? I know our Faiths have pointed out all the reasons why it was done. But I think we lose a little wisdom by not also seeing absurdity in His death. The Christian faiths, I think, take Spirituality all the way to the absurd, but then back off. And I think were all poorer for it.
Do your beliefs seem absurd to Karen Armstrong? Probably. Does her faith seem absurd to you? Probably.
The perspective of the absurdity of Christ’s passion need not negate other perspectives. Absurdity seems to be staring us in the face, right at the heart of Christ’s passion. Acceptance of the absurd is the bridge that spans all belief systems.
“wasn’t it absurd that God had His own Son killed?”
Edward, make this a post, or reconsider it.(chuckle) Free will is fundamental to a belief in a Biblical God.
Sharon, great view. Take people at their word! All the mischief occurs in what we choose to make things mean. We are meaning making machines. We take what people say, and make it mean something we can be righteous about.
The operative word in this is love. What is it? Who gets to say. What we choose to make it mean is the distinction people try to make in themselves. Yet, it is what it is.
Are religions just co-opting love and goodness to justify righteousness? Turner’s Creed is a mantra to keep us present to the temptation.
What is it we can count on in God and Jesus? Integrity in their word. What is it we can not count on in ourselves? Integrity in our word.
Love is what love is. Jesus is love through acceptance, no judgment. We can count on this as surely as what is.
Another - “meaning making machines” - what a great phrase! I was well into adulthood before I started to understand the distance between a word and the meaning that I give to it. My natural impulse is to think that I’ve got the correct understanding of love, God, righteousness, absurdity, etc…and it’s the other person who’s confused about meaning. I know better now, but that doesn’t necessarily solve the problem. Perhaps rather than getting exasperated at Karen Armstrong I should simply say that what she means by God and what I mean by God are two entirely different things.
A step further, there is no meaning in God. God is.
Why do we create it?
God speaks clearly and in declarative statements, with no difficult in self expression.
We bring all the confusion to it, and with a purpose.
This takes a leap to accept meaning as an act of creation, and that meaning does not exist in the world until we say it does.
The powerful outcome is that we say what things mean, and with that comes a responsiblity and a freedom around all the meaning in the world.
It is difficult to take offense when we accept that meaning is made up. We can take people, and God at their word.
With all these new contributors and avalanche of topics, I can’t keep track of who’s saying what. Might I suggest we rename this blog the `Tower of Babel?’
Sharon is, obviously, a mature Christian who befriends those with a different point-of-view - as Jesus Christ would do.
I’ve always found it interesting how attracted sinners were to Jesus Christ - but none of the religious leaders of the day (except for Nicodemus) wanted anything to do with Him - and, quite frankly, found Him to be a threat.
I pray to God that I can be more like Jesus - and ask for His Spirit to convict me of my sin and be more loving to ALL people - particularly those with whom I have a different worldview.
The proverbial in other words, taking people and God at their word is distinct from what they say, or you say they mean.
God doesn’t say what God means. God says it.