Religious Truth

My previous post might seem a bit anti-religion. It was not intended to be. I consider myself a science advocate because I believe science has brought more benefit to mankind than any other cognitive construct, and that it is the most effective tool ever devised for revealing the secrets of the natural world. However, I am not anti-religion. I like some religions more than others, but I do not completely accept the idea that "religion poisons everything" as expressed in the subtitle of Christopher Hitchens' book, "God is Not Great." I am not completely on board with the new atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris. I believe that religion provides a net benefit to society and that the criticism of the new atheists results from cherry picking the worst examples of religions influence.

I believe that religion reveals a type of truth, just not the truths that literalistic believers think it does. It does not reveal the truth about worlds beyond this one or the secrets of setting yourself up well for the next life. Nobody knows the answers to those questions despite their strong convictions to the contrary. We can demonstrate conclusively that religion has an atrocious track record of accuracy in trying to reveal truths about the natural world that are accessible to science. Rather, its value lies in its insight into the human mind, motivation, social cohesion, mental health, and its ability to organize and motivate giving to private charity. Secular organizations, despite their good intentions, never seem to be able to do this quite as well.

I once tried to explain to a very literalistic believer in my former faith the things I valued about the religion I grew up with, which included the items mentioned above. His response was that if the claims of the religion were not literally true, then the religion was basically worthless. If the unique beliefs about the afterlife were not true, then participation is pointless. It seems that on this point he would be in agreement with the new atheists if he were to ever discover that his beliefs were not literally true. However, there is a middle ground that is more than a mere compromise.

I believe that the best religion has to offer fulfills a deep need in the human psyche that nothing else satisfies as well. This is not dependent on the literal truth of the religious belief, but it is dependent on how humans are put together. The proclivity to insist on literal truth in spiritual texts is a modern tendency that was not shared by the ancients. Religious literalism is doomed to fail eventually once the populace becomes sufficiently informed and open minded enough to reject religious claims contradicted by solid science. Unless literal believers can transition over to a symbolic, less-literal interpretation of their foundational texts they will likely miss out on the benefits that go beyond a literal, historical interpretation.

So why is religion so effective at what it does? Religion has been around long enough to have accumulated deep wisdom into profound human psychological and social needs. At least this is true of the old religions. Some of the newer religions have not yet acquired this wisdom, but rather, they exploit the deep psychological needs of its followers in order to placate the ego of a charismatic leader. I believe that some of these newer religions can be more harmful than beneficial. They still may fulfill some of the same needs, but at way too high of a cost in terms of time, money, and intellectual integrity.

Another question that occurs to me is, do we need to believe literally in order to reap the benefits religion has to offer? Put another way, can we behave ourselves without the literal belief that the Great Sky Daddy will punish us if we don't? Once children discover that Santa Clause is not real, we can no longer use that to motivate and control them. Once we see the man behind the curtain, the great Oz loses his power to awe and intimidate. However, I believe the greatest benefits of religion go beyond this simplistic method of social control. I still feel a great sense of awe and comfort participating in religious rituals, despite my non-literal beliefs.

I feel especially attracted to religions that acknowledge mystery rather than believing in the illusion that they have everything figured out. I also appreciate a religion that can accept me as I am, despite my skepticism. I do not understand why faith is considered such a high virtue when the ability to think and reason can often serve us much better. Finally, I will never again participate in a religion where I have to check my brain at the door or pretend to be something I am not. My former religion treated me as if I was the one with the problem, while the problem all along was that they were absolutely certain of things that are just not so. I have a quite different view than I once did of the words attributed to Jesus, "the truth shall set you free." The truth has set me free of limiting fundamentalist, literalistic beliefs and taken me to a place where I have found peace, comfort, love, and acceptance.