Tag: Thought

  • Dawkins Part 6: The Problem With Fundamentalism

    We’re all fundamentalists in some way. I find it quite contradictory that Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and the like criticize others for being fundamentalists when they themselves are so adament about their atheistic worldviews.

    Dawkins spends a fair amount of time criticizing the extremist views of some religious people. He talks about Christians that kill abortion doctors. He talks about Muslims that kill people that have converted from Islam to Christianity (or other religions). And we’re all aware of the many “fundamentalist preachers” in the US and throughout the world that discriminate against homosexuality, women and other differences that they claim somehow make people unequal.

    This is one area where I’ve gotta agree with Dawkins. I agree that fundamentalist views are problematic. They divide us. They split us into factions. These divisions work against all of us. There is no community spirit in division. That being said, we’re not all going to agree on everything. Human nature doesn’t make this possible. We all ahve different opinions. We all like different things. We don’t all like the same movies, the same food, the same music or the same books.

    So, why does that mean that we all have to like the same worldview?

    It doesn’t.

    But, does that mean that we should impose our opinions on other people? I’d argue no, but then I’m bound to be called a fundamentalist by someone that disagrees with me. And there’s the rub… we’re all fundamentalists in some way, shape or form. Does this make us wrong? No. What is right and wrong when you’re debating ideas that have competing evidence? There’s a whole lot of grey in those discussions.

    For a lot of years, I loved to live in the black and white of right and wrong. I didn’t function well with shades of grey. Structure and rules provide comfort and stability. But I eventually realized that each of us look at things through different sets of eyes. I see things as a middle aged white male living in a middle class neighbourhood after growing up in a blue collar family. There are plenty of other perspectives though. Factors that influence our perspectives include gender, cultural background, colour, age, education level, geographical location, etc. All of these things will impact our views, our values, our opinions and our prejudices (whether real or perceived).

    Trying to view things as others see them is a worthwhile exercise, as it allows us to understand each other better. Give it a try. Juggle some of the factors that I mentioned above. Imagine how you’d perceive the following sitatuations:

    • Money if you are rich versus poor
    • Food if you are hungry versus well fed
    • Sex if you are loved versus abused
    • etc. – the list could go on and on

    So my question here is: What makes religion any different? Why can’t we all have differing worldviews? What’s wrong with understanding and connecting with God in different ways?

    The problem here, as Dawkins has so articulately put it, is that some people don’t allow for freedom of religion or of expression. Some people believe that it is their duty to convince others of their perspective, even to the point of persecuting them if they don’t agree. Thus, we are faced with the problems of extreme responses that I mentioned above.

    My religion tells me:

    Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matthew 28:19-20)

    But surely, Jesus, saying these words, didn’t mean to forcefully convert people, did he? That would be contradictory to his earlier teachings on peace. Remember, Jesus also said:

    Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ (Matthew 22:37-39)

    These two quotes are two of the “biggies” in Christianity. The first quote, Matt 28:19-20, is known as The Great Commission. The second, Matt 22:37-39, is known as The Greatest Commandment. Thus, these are primary verses for Christians to understand.

    Some have had a difficult time interpreting these two and allowing them to coexist together. To some, the order to “go and make disciples” has been understood as an active, forceful directive in which coersion is to be applied to convert people. One of the greatest recorded abuses of this is by the Spanish and others that arrived in the New World only to massacre hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Native Americans. These massacres were at least partially justified through the directive to “convert or die”. Yet, this directly contradicts Jesus’ pacifist message of love, as highlighted in The Greatest Commandment.

    This type of tension is present in numerous different worldviews. Religion isn’t the only place that this is present, but it is worrisome when it leads to extremism.

    The media has reported numerous examples of religious extremism coming from the Muslim faith lately. As I look at the facts in the situations of suicide bombers and freedom fighters, I do understand some of the motivations behind their actions. Persecution and lack of options is high on the list of reasons for what pushes people to go to such extremes. But, when these people claim to be doing the work of the Lord by carrying out such acts, that doesn’t really jive with what others within their own faith believe. Further investigation tends to suggest that these extremists follow an extreme interpretation of their texts, in much the same way that Christian extremists distort and disregard the message that is provided in the New Testament of Christianity. Thus, there is some concern with the validity of their claims.

    And really… do we really think that killing someone will make our point of view any more right? I argue no. If anything, it will distract anyone from listening to the original argument and will instead focus them on the violent action. If I need violence to defend my opinion, then I’d best re-examine my argument because it can’t be that strong of an argument if I can’t defend it by other means.

    The key here is tolerance and confidence that we are following the right path for the right reason. No matter what factors play into our individual worldviews, I do believe (here goes the fundamentalist in me again!) that we are each, individually responsible for having a rational and well thought out worldview. Otherwise, why do we believe what we believe?

    So yeah… I’m onside with Dawkins here. I agree that extremist views do exist and that violent coercion to convince others is the wrong way to go. If your argument isn’t convincing enough, then perhaps you need to reconsider your argument. And, if your argument doesn’t make sense, then why do you believe what you believe? And further, if you hold a religious worldview that involves Jesus or the Quran, which both preach love and peace, then why would you follow a violent path to represent that faith? Doesn’t it make you a hypocrite?

    That’s my challenge for you today… take some time to examine what you really believe.

    Next up: More moral discussion in “The Slippery Slope of Abortion“.

  • Dawkins Part 5: The Historical Jesus

    “Where is God in our world?” is the question that atheists often ask. To many, God does appear to be absent. Miracles don’t happen to the poor, to the oppressed, to those that lose children or loved ones. God does appear to be missing from the lives of those that are down and out.

    But wait… haven’t you read the Bible? The Old Testament is full of stories of God interacting with people in the world. Religious opposition challenges that this is simply myth that has been preserved for thousands of years.

    What about the New Testament? Didn’t God come to earth in human form? He certainly did. He came in the form of his son, Jesus. Much debate has been conducted over the actual substance of Jesus: was he God, was he man, was he a combination of the two? I’ll save that debate for another day. But for now, let’s focus on the historical record of Jesus walking among us.

    The Historical Jesus provides us with a temporal link to God. This is one of many links to God. Some claim that they experience God on a daily basis. I’d like to think that I spend time with God daily, but I have no empirical evidence with which to prove it to my doubting friends. Thus… today’s post: proof of God walking among us. And to provide my answer, I’m going to borrow heavily from some writing that I posted on Feb 24 2007 entitled, “What is an evangelical – III“.

    The 20th and 21st Centuries have seen an unparalleled interest in the truth claims of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Numerous academics, skeptics and religious challengers have been attempting to subvert the historical validity of the New Testament. The most recent scholarship has not only further confirmed the accuracy of the New Testament texts, but it has also uncovered additional documentation to support the existence of Jesus Christ in the first century.

    Mark Allen Powell, in his book “Jesus as a Figure in History“, provides a great summary of the standard criteria used in religious studies research to comment on authenticity. Powell provides six criteria. They are:

    1. Multiple Attestation – are the same ideas found in multiple sources?
    2. Dissimilarity – an idea is more likely to be authentic if it is different from the typical perspectives of the period in question. In this case, perspectives that differed from typical Judaic thought would be considered more likely to come from Jesus.
    3. Memorable Form – memorable phrases, stories or sayings would be more likely to be authentic. It is assumed that stories pertaining to Jesus were first transmitted in oral form, it is more likely that proverbs, beatitudes and stories in memorable forms would be more likely to be accurately remembered, shared and passed on.
    4. Language and Environment – Does the language and environment fit the historical period in question? If so, this supports the authenticity of the claim.
    5. Explanation – Does the story or quote in question further support the claims made about the person, place or thing in question.
    6. Coherence – Does the story under scrutiny fit with the rest of the factual information known about the topic at hand? If so, this lends additional credence to the argument in question.

    There is plenty of writing out there to support all six of these categories. There are multiple sources that point to the validity of the Jesus of history, both before and after his resurrection. There are numerous sources that date back to the same century as Christ’s life. And, these sources come from numerous different perspectives. This multiple attestation shows the abundance of early documentation in support of the claim that Jesus is the Messiah. The criteria of dissimilarity fits, as Jesus’ message definitely went against the grain of the Jewish leaders of the day. We need look no further than the Sermon on the Mount to see the criteria of memorable form at play. The language, environment and explanations for the stories of Jesus all seem to fit together quite well. And, there is a coherence to the stories of Jesus that suggests a valid historical foundation as well.

    Further, let’s consider some additional factors at play here. Asking the question, “Can we trust the text of the Bible?”, I suggest the following: Why not? Christianity was built upon Judaism, which maintained an enormous oral tradition for a thousand years. They had the skills to maintain the accuracy of their traditions and they knew how to preserve their scripture.

    And to answer those that ask, “But what about the conflicting accounts in the gospels? (The Gospels are the first four books of the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John)”, I offer the following: The Gospels are not a transcript, but they are an account that eye witnesses wrote down as witnesses. Each gospel will obviously have a perspective to them. Does this make them inaccurate? No, it just means that they were viewed through a certain lens. And really… what historical reports are not presented through a lens?

    And finally, people suggest that the New Testament didn’t contain the earliest sources or that the church mixed and matched scripture in order to meet their own “agenda”. Nothing could be farther from the truth here. As religious scholars agree, the canon that we recognize today as the New Testament was complete and circulating together as a “package” by the end of the first century. This was quite early in the history of the church.

    Further, the additional “questionable texts” like the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Judas had two problems that kept them from inclusion in the New Testament:

    1. These books were written much later, dating anywhere from the mid-second century for some of these books to others that dated into the third century. These were much later writings than the texts that are included in the New Testament.
    2. The content and structure didn’t match with the other books in the New Testament. Many of these texts that were not included have a style that marks them as Gnostic texts, which were much different theologically than the New Testament that we know. This makes them markedly different from the early texts, which, because of their much earlier dating, are considered to be much more accurate and theologically agreeable to the intentions of Jesus and the early church.

    While there is modern discourse about the dating and ordering of the New Testament in the early church, there is little disagreement over the relative accuracy of the claims that I’ve summarized above. Thus, the documentation itself is relatively solid from a date perspective.

    The one final question is, “Yeah, but what about outsiders? Did anyone outside of the church validate the claims of Christianity, or did they all have a vested interest in furthering the Gospel of Jesus?” Luckily, there is some external evidence to support the claims that Jesus was stirring things up in the early church. The external documentation doesn’t go to the same depths as the Gospels do to proclaim the good news, but they do validate that a person named Jesus was on the tongues of the early Christians and that Jesus provided a motivation to spread the Gospel message across the Roman Empire and beyond. Josephus, a Jewish historian of the first century, mentioned Jesus. Josephus provides one of the few historical accounts of this period of history and his writing about Jesus provides at least a partial validation about the existence and influence of the man named Jesus.

    While Josephus does not delve into the theological claims of the New Testament, he does place Jesus in the early first century and he does mention that he had followers.

    There is plenty of scholarly research to support these claims, but for the sake of expediency and adequateness, I’ll refer you to a wikipedia entry on the Historical Jesus that provides the main points for the time being. The wikipedia entry also provides some additional links for further study. And, if you are interested in reading further, check out the following great resources that I’ve referenced in the past:

  • Catching my breath & your turn to comment

    I’m taking a rest day today to catch my breath and to get caught up on some other items that are currently outstanding. That being said, today is not a total wash… I’ve got a challenge for you today. Read on for more…

    But first, I’m really excited by this latest series on Dawkins’ The God Delusion. Your feedback has been great. I appreciate both positive and negative comments. Positive comments encourage me. The challenging comments force me to strengthen my writing (and they keep me on my toes!). Thank you to everyone that’s commented thus far.

    Now, for the fun part… This is your chance to get involved!

    I’d like to get your thoughts and opinions on what you’ve read so far. I don’t want to interrupt this series by responding to comments in the middle, but I am eager to respond to some of the feedback that I’ve received. So, once I’ve completed this series, I’ll take a couple of days (give or take, depending on the feedback I get) to respond to questions and to discuss this topic in more detail.

    So… there are a couple of ways you can participate:

    1. You can provide a comment (or two… or more!) to any of the posts in this series; or
    2. You can email me directly (toddhdow [at] gmail.com);

    I’ll take a sampling of these comments and build them into Q & A type posts at the tail end of this series. Should make for some fun discussions as I’m sure that we’re not all in complete agreement on any of this stuff. But, that doesn’t mean that we can’t have a positive dialogue.

    One request: please do not use profanity or offensive language in your posts. I don’t want to censor any content, but I do want to keep the content respectful. I don’t blush at the odd swear word, but swearing, name calling, threats, etc. will result in comments either being modified or deleted completely.

    Thanks and I look forward to your thoughts!

    Todd Dow

  • Dawkins Part 4: The Objective Roots of Morality

    At every turn, Dawkins seems to mess up a perfect opportunity to have an intelligent discussion about God. Chapter 6 is titled, “The roots of Morality: Why Are We Good?” and this is a great place to discuss the ultimate goal or purpose of God. Unfortunately, Dawkins squanders this opportunity. Instead of arguing against the need for God in the moral equation, Dawkins spends his time distracting us from the task at hand, instead offering up several anecdotal experiences to support his claims. This is yet another failed attempt by Dawkins to convince the reader of his claims. And, with more poor logic in this chapter, Dawkins further harms his overall goal of convincing the reader of the atheistic worldview.

    In today’s post, I’ll highlight some of the errors in Dawkins’ logic, then I’ll provide my commentary on where morality must come from in order to be useful within the world at large. So, without further ado, here we go!

    Dawkins starts by providing some examples of negative emails that have been sent to him. These letters were supposedly written by Christians and they were quite offensive and threatening. In my view, these types of letters go against everything that Christianity represents. I’m not quite sure what Dawkins’ point is here, because it would be silly to argue that these letters represent all Christians. And, it would be silly to suggest that these letters have any moral grounding in the writing of Christ. Note: the letters that he quotes do not provide a coherent argument that grounds itself in New Testament theology. Thus, they don’t really count as accurate representations of sound Christian doctrine. To me, and I’m sure to many of you, these letters are simply the work of individuals who may or may not be misguided in the pursuit of their faith. And, in case Dawkins was suggesting that misbehaving Christians mean that God is not the answer to moral grounding, well… I’ve received my fair share of disrespectful and violently offensive emails from atheists. So Dawkins, I hate to disappoint, but I don’t get your point here. It seems that you’re barking up the same tree that I discussed yesterday: bad representatives do not mean that the faith itself is flawed.

    After this rather pointless introduction, Dawkins makes the argument that our morality is pre-programmed within us. He suggests that we have within ourselves an innate altruism (behaviour where we put the needs of others above our own needs – charity, good will, etc.). This innate altruism is, according to Dawkins, beneficial to our survival and growth as a species. It is part of the genetic make-up of the “survival of the fittest”, so to speak. Dawkins explains that this type of altruism benefits the individual by inspiring similar acts of altruism to be returned to the person giving the charity to others. Ultimately, this altruism results in greater benefits for the individual in question, thus extending the success and prosperity of the altruistic individual. This suggests to me that Dawkins version of altruism is self-beneficial and is thus, not necessarily altruistic after all.

    One might counter this by saying, “doesn’t that mean that behaving because God or Jesus tells us to is equally self-beneficial and thus equally un-altruistic as well?” That is a good point, but it greatly diminishes the purpose of the love that Jesus talks about in the New Testament. The altruistic behaviour that Jesus talks about in Mark 12:30-31 is called agape love and it is divine love, which is an unconditional love. It has no strings. It expects nothing in return. It does not need love in return. It is simply love freely given. To apply agape love means to become like God in the way that God loves. And, Jesus provides the example of agape love that we are to strive for. Jesus brings us the message of agape love and instructs us to love one another in this way. For more on agape love, check out my previous series on love entitled “Who Do You Love“, and specifically “Part 4 of 5: AGAPE – unconditional love.”

    Dawkins’ love doesn’t sound like this. It isn’t altruistic in the least. Dawkins himself argues that his version of altruism is self-serving. So much for that argument, eh Dawkins?

    Next, Dawkins calls out the great flaw in atheistic thought… he asks the question, “If there is no God, why be good?” It is this question which cannot be answered by atheists. There is no good answer to this question. Dawkins opens up the discussion by pulling in one of the premiere explanations from existentialism on the abyss that is a Godless existence. Dawkins quotes Dostoevsky in his masterpiece, The Brothers Karamazov (I highly recommend this book – it is absolutely briliant!). Dawkins quotes a scene where Ivan Karamazov argues that without God, ultimate meaning can only be derived from within. Ivan says that “egoism, even extending to the perpetration of a crime, would not only be permissible but would be recognized as the essential, the most rational, and even the noblest raison d’etre of the human condition.”

    Dawkins also mentions the book Outsider by Albert Camus. This book makes the same point: there is no absolute grounding or meaning in life. Thus, we are what we create as our reality.

    I’ve argued the problems with this already in an earlier post about the myth of Sisyphus. The larger context of the series is quite contentious, but the point is the same. For the purpose of this discussion, focus only on the story of Sisyphus, and ignore the surrounding content of the post series. If you feel strongly compelled to discuss the content of that series more, feel free to do it within the bounds of that series. Don’t bring that discussion back to this series please.

    But where were we… Sisyphus: the argument goes that Sisyphus was condemned to roll a rock up a hill for eternity. Every time Sisyphus approached the top of the hill, it would fall back down the hill again. Thus, Sisyphus was faced with a potentially meaninglessness existence. Ultimately, the story becomes one in which Sisyphus creates for himself a purpose and a meaning to motivate him to continue to roll the stone. But by so doing this, Sisyphus was lying to himself. This ultimately leads to living a life of meaninglessness or lying to oneself about one’s ultimate purpose. Either way, these are pretty desolate choices. (I’ve skipped some logic here… for the full argument, check out the link above to the article on Sisyphus).

    So… without a purpose and without a proper grounding, what motivations are there for an atheist to live a life of moral goodness? And what does goodness mean to a purposeless person? And further, if we are all individually responsible for creating our versions of reality, what’s to stop each of us from having completely different versions of good and bad? One person’s hedonism might be another person’s morally bankrupt lifestyle. Problems abound here.

    Consider the “final solution” suggested by the Nazis in WWII. To an atheist, Hitler’s justification for “purifying the human race” could have been seen as noble and good. Nietzsche’s atheistic writing seems to reinforce this view as well, as does that of his contemporaries including C. Schmitt and others. My point here is to simply point out that atheism doesn’t provide any motivation for acting rightly in the world. If anything, atheism has propagated the increasingly problematic sense of pluralism and relativism which is leading to further religious, political, and social strife in the world. There are some benefits to central rules of moral authority, as long as those central rules are morally sound and humane. And, in the atheistic worldview, there is no grounding for moral goodness, nor is a central authority encouraged. In atheism and the nothingness that it purports, the individual is the only priority and everyone else is simply a means to that individual’s ends.

    In this chapter, Dawkins did nothing to further the atheistic grounding for morality. It is unfortunate, as Dawkins is now over half way through the book and he has yet to mount a convincing and logically sound argument to support his cause.

    To conclude, let me offer a couple of thoughts on the grounding of morality within religion. As I have argued elsewhere and will continue to argue in upcoming posts, God’s existence and his participation in our existence provides us with a concrete, absolute source of moral grounding. With God as our moral compass, we have a baseline upon which to make decisions. Jesus provides the clearest explanation of this moral imperative when he tells us to love God and to love our neighbours. His rules in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 to 7) provide an outline for Christian living which are pretty hard to screw up or to misinterpret.

    You’d be right in suggesting that even Christians don’t live their lives the way that Jesus suggests. Good point. But I defer you to my last post where I talked about separating the organization from the faith. While the organization may distort the views of the faith, that doesn’t mean the faith is flawed. It simply means that those representing the faith are flawed.

    Thus, if we can be grounded in an absolute sense of right and wrong, then we can live our lives with a sense of purpose and clear direction. Any other way is simply a lie or a meaningless struggle in futility.

    Next up, we’ll talk about The Historical Jesus. This post should be fun. I’ll be speaking to those that have been asking, “In what ways has God connected with us?”

  • Dawkins Part 3: Problems with Organized Religion

    By far, I would argue that organized religion has posted the biggest problems for God. Paradoxically, the very institutions that have grown to recognize God have done the most harm. A quick look through history will highlight many problems that the Christian Church has perpetrated in the name of our Holy Father:

    • The Crusades
    • The repeated persecution of the Jews throughout history
    • The European Conquest of North America
    • The Inquisition
    • The 17th Century Wars of Religion
    • The extreme prejudice that has faced scientific advancement: Galileo’s persecution comes to mind, as do numerous other barriers to scientific inquiry during the Enlightenment
    • Silence by some in the church (many criticize the Catholic Church for not speaking out during WW II) in the face of such evils as slavery and the Nazi “final solution”
    • Several types of abuse (sexual, physical) by Catholic Priests & the subsequent cover-ups to protect the priests
    • Assassination of abortion doctors by fundamentalist Christians
    • George W Bush’s “crusade” in the war on terror

    I could go on, but you get the point. And this is only some of the problems that the Christian Church has contributed. Islam introduces a whole host of additional problems, most notably questionable human rights practices like intolerant laws (Sharia Law), inequality of women and children and the quite visible violent fundamentalist actions of Muslim extremists.

    For the record, I do not in any way support any of these actions in any way. In fact, I have subscribed to a Christian denomination (Mennonite) that is pacifist. Mennonites strongly identify with the peace teachings of Christ, and Mennonites hold that Jesus’ pacifist message requires that we turn the other cheek and that we avoid violence at all costs. For a more complete overview of my views on this subject, check out my four part series entitled, “What Are We Fighting For?”

    So yeah… where does this leave us then? Organized religion has, and continues to, contribute to many of the problems facing the world today. And, it’s easy to argue that almost every war has been at least indirectly caused by religious belief. Does this mean we should get rid of organized religion then? Well… that would be like saying that politics has led to plenty of civil strife so we should get rid of politicians. Or use economics: economics has led to the financial persecution of some poorer countries, most notably in Africa. Does that mean we should do away with economic ideas as well? I’d argue no. Look around us. Organized religion can do a lot of good as well. Numerous religious organizations provide a great deal of good throughout the world. Organizations like Mennonite Central Committee, The Salvation Army, World Vision and Samaritan’s Purse all contribute a great deal to those in need. These and many others work toward peace and healing to people that nobody else feels the need to reach.

    This isn’t to diminish the hard and effective work of the numerous secular charities that exist. My point here is to show that religious charities do contribute a great deal to helping those in need. This strongly contrasts the numerous problems that I mentioned in my opening paragraphs.

    And further, the Christian Church has been, throughout most of recorded history, the main protector of much of the rich cultural heritage that we in the west have enjoyed. The artwork of Michelangelo, the writing of The Bible (arguably the greatest literary achievement ever) and the storage and preservation of almost two thousand years of history has been done by the Church. The Church financed the exploration and discovery of the New World (North America – for good and for bad). The Church supported the abolition of slavery. And the Church has stood up vigorously for human rights throughout the world.

    But my point here isn’t to keep score on both sides of the organized religion debate. The pros and cons could go on and on all day. Instead, let’s talk about the “sociology” of religion.

    I want to tell you about a really interesting undergrad course that I took called “Sociology of Religion.” This course highlighted numerous theories that explained where religion comes from. To Sociologists, religion is a man made apparatus used to provide mankind with a need that we cannot find elsewhere: the human need for a purpose and higher meaning. Sociologists suggest that religion is a lie that is told to placate the masses. Remember Karl Marx: “Religion is the opiate of the masses.” Marx, Weber, Freud and Feuerbach have provided some of the more famous social commentary on religion. They’re unanimous that organized religion is simply a tool used to keep the public in line and on target with the key goal of the aristocracy. We need look no further than the current US Administration to see the effectiveness of religious imagery to motivate the American public to get behind the war in Iraq. Unfortunately for Bush and his team in the White House, they could only fool the public so long. Their long abuse of power doesn’t seem to be going well anymore.

    Dawkins subscribes to the same school of thought as Marx, Weber and the gang, but Dawkins pulls in some other examples to make his point. Regardless of the sources, the point is the same: that religion has no basis in reality and it is the creation of faith out of myth for the purpose of population control at the expense of reason. And, Dawkins has some buddies that like to argue this same line of thought. Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Michel Onfray are among the current crop that push the same agenda.

    In response, I have three responses to the suggestion that organized religion, specifically Christianity, is a made up religion:

    1. The original Christian martyrs wouldn’t have died for the cause: – Imagine you’re part of a new group that claims that they have the ultimate truth. Would you go to the grave to defend it? Without proof, I doubt it. And, what sort of proof would you want? You’d need to be pretty convinced before you’d sacrifice yourself. Enduring stoning, being fed to the lions or worse would require the utmost conviction.These first martyrs include Peter. Remember that Peter denied Jesus three times to avoid persecution. What changed for Peter? Well… Jesus did come back to visit after he rose again. That would be pretty convincing to some.Or consider Paul. Paul could have gone on living the good life, persecuting others, including early Christian martyrs (like Stephen, as seen in Acts 7:578:3 – Paul is referred to here as Saul.) But after meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus (Acts 9), Paul changes course, blindly following Jesus in the pursuit of the Christian Kingdom.
    2. Does a “social theory” discount the original claim? – So what if people can put together a great sounding explanation for the birth of a religious movement. Sociologists are quite adept at showing how religion works. Does that make Christianity, or the existence of God, any less real? I can explain how I get to work in social terms (groups of like-minded communities have built an infrastructure that allows for shared transportation and civil obedience) or technical jargon (my automobile runs on a combustion engine, which pushes me down the road to my destination). Do either of these explanations give the whole picture? No, they don’t.Sociology does allow us to better understand our relationships among one another. But that doesn’t necessarily discount religious communities.
    3. Should the abuses of a religious community mean that the religion itself is false? – This one’s like asking if banks should be banished because some of their employees commit fraud or other financial crimes.

    So where does this leave us? Should we throw the baby out with the bathwater? I argue no. Religious belief has a legitimate place in our lives for those that wish to participate. I am conscious of the abuses made by organized religion and I am in favour of punishing those responsible for those abuses. But I don’t think that those abuses should be representative of the Church as a whole. Christianity has published its book of rules. It’s called The Bible. As Bruxy Cavey, the Teaching Pastor of the Meeting House, tells us, “What Jesus came to establish was a subversive spirituality outside the boundary markers of traditional religion, and in the process he made religion itself obsolete.”

    Thus, Jesus himself tells us not to be religious, but instead to be spiritual in the way we live our lives. We should live in community with other Christians in order to live out our lives as Christians, but Jesus’ message is quite simple: he tells us to live in peace and to love God and one another. Why overcomplicate it? I don’t see the point.

    So… where does this leave us? How does this apply to Dawkins? Well… Dawkins argues that religion is dangerous and should be abolished. In cases where religion becomes abusive, I’d have to agree. But that doesn’t mean removing faith. That simply means removing the organization that is misrepresenting the message. And the message that I hear loud and clear is a good one:

    Matthew 22:37-39:

    Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’

    Romans 12:21:

    Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

    I hope that this post puts to rest a lot of the comments on organized religion. I’m with you. I agree that organized religion can be problematic. But let’s not let that prevent us from having a relationship with God.

    Next up: “The objective roots of morality”