In my post on religious diversity I received this comment:
And for the record, I don't think anybody's religious sensibilities deserve to be put above the law. You want a driver's license, you show your face for the picture. You want to be pharmacist, you sell anything legal. You want to take government-insured patients, you take all of them.
It's no more ridiculous to worship that bull than a book. No less, either.
I agree with the ultimate sentiment in my heart. That being said, proximate judgments and assessments are made with the head. The fool hath said in his heart, "Religion is just another silly belief system." It isn't. I accept that the objective substance of religious beliefs may often be silly & even banal, but the outcomes of these beliefs when mixed with the material reality of human beings operating within the world have consequences which constrain & frame choice. I may think that the Hindu idolatry of the cow is silly, but I would not consider eating a medium rare beef steak with a smattering of black pepper on the streets of Ahmedabad.
When it comes to religion I frankly find the atheist refrain that it is just another silly set of beliefs, akin to belief in gnomes or astrology, disingenuous. Gnomes are cuddly, astrology is light-hearted, but gods stir our souls. As a example of what I mean, I once watched Brad Stine, a Christian conservative comedian mocking secularists for objecting to mention of Jesus in a public classroom in a prayer. Stine observed that atheists are silly, fearing the word "Jesus" as if has some magical power. The audience laughed uproariously, they were affirming Stine's contention that "Jesus" was just a word. But consider this: what if you told Stine's audience, predominantly evangelical Christians, that class would begin with a prayer to Lord Krishna? After all, Krishna is "just a word." Of course the reaction would be powerful and negative. No doubt Stine's audience would abhor the idea of their children being present when due reverence was given over to a "idol" and a "false god." And for the Christian the word Jesus is manifestly not just a word, it is a word that encapsulates the Word incarnate.1
For the unbeliever what is critical about religion is not the content of beliefs, but the consequence of those beliefs. Astrology is irrelevant to my own life so long as it remains predominantly a pastime indulged in for entertainment value, those who live by lies may continue to do so so long as the consequences of those lies do not bleed into the public sphere. The problem, inasmuch as there is one, with religion is that these beliefs acquire ontological significance & emotional salience. Like a many-headed hydra the memeplex that we term "religion" wraps itself around the riotous scaffolding which is the human cognitive infrastructure and like a slingshot can amplify the power of a vector by many orders of magnitude. Religion can turn anger and resentment into the fury of the gods, a righteous crusade to avenge wrongs of cosmic scope. It can take the human ability to empathize and general abstract universal concepts of justice and transform them into herculean acts of altruism and compassion. It is a force of our nature which have to take into account, whether we think it's built upon a foundation of lies or not. The Emperor Constantine, the first Christian Emperor of the Romans, issued edicts where he frankly lectured his pagan subjects that they were worshipers of "illusions," yet he continued the grants of customary subsidies to the cults of Rome. It took decades for Emperors who were followers of the Christian religion to cease subsidizing religious cults which they sincerely believed to be the work of demons deceiving men & women into worshiping lies. They simply had to deal with the practical realities of the deeply held beliefs of their pagan subjects and allies, false or not.2
Let me illustrate the necessity of pragmatism with an example. Consider that you are a public official in a town. This town is divided in religious sentiment. 1/3 of the population are devout Mormons, 1/3 of the population are devout Orthodox Jews and 1/3 of the population are devout Muslims. Assume you have a 7 day week. You know immediately that public business can only be practical on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The other days are obligate days of rest and religious devotion and reflection for a substantial proportion of the population. Why? If you are an atheist, you will believe that these days are "off limits" because of superstition, the command from on high of a non-existent being. But atheist or not, you also know that any attempt to dissuade the respective religions from resting on their prescribed days will be met with resistance (and likely failure). Additionally, there is the possibility that the other groups will support the third group if any attempt to target one sect is made simply to prevent the precedent. The fundamental rationale for why a particular day must be removed from the calender of common public activity is silly, but its proximate impact is real as the day.
This is what I mean when I stated that excessive religious diversity was problematic in a society where toleration and accommodation were both cherished. Sects have their own peculiarities which defy common sense and logic, and as the number of sects proliferates so the multitudinous demands would swamp any capacity for accommodation. Consider the controversies having to do with Christian Scientists, who often reject the efficacy of modern medicine. This small group has generally been able to receive relatively gentle treatment from the powers that be despite the reality that some members seem to be engaging in child endangerment by not making recourse toward modern medicine. In some cases children have died from common and eminently treatable ailments. But, there are only about 100,000 Christian Scientists in a population of 300 million. Some of the problems which have occurred because the Amish are "left alone" by the authorities must be kept in perspective as there are only a few hundred thousand of these people. If these religious groups were larger then accommodation would be much more problematic. Similarly, the numbers of sects of equal proportion can have a serious affect on a social order. Consider the possibility that 7 different sects had 7 different days of rest! In this case one could not be religiously neutral, by the choice of cordoning off particular days one would be favoring one group over another. Of course, there is a solution to this problem: simply having parallel systems of public accommodation so that all groups can be serviced appropriately. That is, there might be a set of civil servants of religion A which would be able to be keep with the rhythms of religion A, and so on. This would result in a segmented society with no universal public square. And that is why I think we should seriously examine the consequences of allowing for unfettered religious diversity to bloom within a society combined with a sincere attempt at neutrality.
Addendum: I do believe it is essential for individuals to call "bullshit" on ludicrous ideas. I find the pablum in American society about "spirituality" tiresome. That being said, too often I encounter the response, "but religion isn't true...." My question is always: OK, now what? I myself am not a believer, so telling me that religion isn't true seems superfluous.
1 - I don't really know what this last part means.
2 - Between Constantine's Edict of Milan in 313, which formalized the toleration of Christianity, and Theodosius' state sanctioned banning of public paganism in the 390s there were a series of incremental actions which diverted imperial funds away from their traditional support of local pagan cults and institutions toward the Christian churches. But note, at no time was the state truly neutral, it was a slow and gradual shifting of patronage.
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Well said, Razib. This is a huge problem and we non-believers know it and have to deal with it - not with respect but with resignation as long as we can object courageously when it infringes on our ability to operate with ease. We are wary of challenging the believers on the premise that a) it is futile b) it may be offensive ... until they get in our face.
It is also imperative that we non-believers let our "beliefs" known to others without fear and without confrontation. I live in a well kept cul-de-sac in a genteel neighborhood in Texas. Most of my neighbors are devout Christians and Republican. The first opportunity we found, my husband and I let our neighbors know our lack of faith and our political affiliation. I didn't want my neighborly relations to hinge on the assumption that we were faithfuls of any stripe or politically conservative. Things have actually worked out very well for us. I have very friendly relations with my neighbors. I am regularly invited to church, Home Groups and Bible study by both my Catholic and the Baptist friends. Most of the time I decline politely. During Christmas, all share goodies with us. I return the favor not on Hindu/ Indian special occasions but when I go on trips and bring back gifts for them. We skirt around religious/political debates with each other but all of us know very well what we "believe" in the religious and political arena.
As a social Hindu by birth and a beef eating atheist by common sense and conviction, I agree with everything you say about the difficulty of balancing diverse religious needs in public life. Leave alone the criminal practice of female genital mutiliation, I look upon millions of little boys helplessly losing their foreskins to assuage the religious conscience (or to gain spurious medical benefits) of their parents, with horror. I think we can work around minor issues such as each others personal dietary preferences and holidays with some friendly co-operation. (Although it is funny that I accommodate my Jewish, Hindu and Muslim friends' food habits when I invite them to my house, they never in turn cook beef, pork or foods of my choice to keep me happy at dinners in their home :-) Neither do I expect them to.) The bigger problem is to deal with religious beliefs which infringe on rights of others. We should be very forthright in putting our foot down when that boundary tends to be blurred. Driver's license photos, ferrying passengers carrying alcohol, dispensing legal pharmaceutical products, dealing with the opposite sex in the work place etc. Absolutely no quarter ought to be ceded. Those who cannot accept the law of the land and rules of civic behavior ought to stay home or form self supporting colonies like the Amish or the orthodox Jews.
And Razib, just as you would have hesitation about relishing a beef steak in Ahmedabad, I would not go into a Sikh temple with my head uncovered or walk around in rural India or a conservative Muslim country in a revealing outfit.
As for those who want an extended period of rest, fly west out of New Delhi on a Friday morning and reach one of the Islamic nations in the middle east early Friday. Take off for Tel Aviv (strictly a theoretical journey. There is no flight to Tel Aviv from any Muslim country except perhaps Turkey. I doubt that even Egypt Air has landing rights in Ben Gurion Airport) late Friday and spend Saturday in Israel. Fly to a nearby European country late Saturday night to arrive on a Sunday. Who says religion doesn't have its uses?
"When it comes to religion I frankly find the atheist refrain is just another silly set of beliefs, akin to belief in gnomes or astrology, disingenuous."
It is ludicrous to, on the one hand, condemn religion as a form of evil totalitarianism that "poisons everything" (Hitchens) and, on the other, dismiss it as just another silly set of beliefs. I allow that not all atheists do both, but those who do are holding clearly antithetical positions. Something that has such a hold over so many people, some of them quite, um, bright, is lot more than silly ghost stories for nitwits. Religions are affiliative and enable believers to create social frameworks. When these clash, we have all the bad things that atheists (such as myself) gleefully pounce upon. But they don't always.
Iris Murdoch: "God does not and cannot exist. But what led us to conceive of him does exist and is constantly pictured. That is, it is real as an Idea, and also incarnate in knowledge and work and love."
Diana:
(I will let Razib correct me if I am misreading his position.) I think that is exactly Razib's point. That to dismiss religion as either merely silly or evil is not practical. It may even be dangerous. That it has such a strong emotional sway over so many minds, even bright ones, is precisely the reason why we face the very delicate and according to Razib, ultimately an insurmountable task of reconciling a common code of citizen behavior with everyone's disparate personal belief / superstition.
The question to ask now is whether real fairness amounts to accommodating ALL religions in the civic / legal discourse in the public square or to ignore them all.
if i had a 'point' here it is to offer that this a complex issue and that too often people focus on tactical zingers to the point where they lose strategic perspective. i do think that rhetorical poses struck by 'professional atheists' like sam harris have their uses within the ecology of ideas. that being said, i don't really understand why atheists seem so excited by his talking points, it isn't as if the absurdity of religion is going to result in mass conversions to godlessness at anytime in the future. religion seems likely, in various forms, to be here to stay.
in regards to my point about religious diversity, that is an allusion to the reality that we treat religion differently. as atheists we often get 'offended' by proselytization, but why, if they are just 'silly ideas'? obviously ideas have consequences. the reality of public debate and policy as secularists means that we have to engage religion and understand and examine it. it is fine to dismiss the phenomenon, but if you do so then you must give up the license to speak about it with any credibility. as unbelievers we mustn't, i believe, fool ourselves into thinking that a manichaean conception of 'us' vs. 'them' will help us in the long term. in the game of religious accommodation there are differences, and some dispensations we can 'do business' with, and others we can not. harris et. al. specifically attack 'religious moderates' (richard dawkins has done this in the past as well), but though psychologically satisfying i think this is a major strategic blunder.
"Like a many-headed hydra the memeplex that we term "religion" wraps itself around the riotous scaffolding which is the human cognitive infrastructure and like a slingshot can amplify the power of a vector by many orders of magnitude."
Damn good line dude! Thus Spake Zarathustra, Sewall Wright edition! Memeplex is inspired, did you make that up or did Dawkins use it?
The analogy I've been using in conversation is that Dawkins et al. want religiousness to be like having kids, when really it's more like wanting sex. Atheism is not like using a prophylactic, it's like being asexual.
Memeplex is inspired, did you make that up or did Dawkins use it?
it's from dawkins.
The analogy I've been using in conversation is that Dawkins et al. want religiousness to be like having kids, when really it's more like wanting sex. Atheism is not like using a prophylactic, it's like being asexual.
good one. and some people are more 'sexed' than others ;-)
"I think that is exactly Razib's point. That to dismiss religion as either merely silly or evil is not practical."
Uh, yeah. I realize that Ruchira. I was chiming in, amplifying & giving my own take. And showing off with the Murdoch quote, which I stole from the recent Salon.com review of Hitchens' latest.
"And that is why I think we should seriously examine the consequences of allowing for unfettered religious diversity to bloom with any polity combined with a sincere attempt at neutrality."
Razib, that's what the wall is for. Really, there is nothing new under the constitutional sun, at least with respect to religion and religious controversy. It may sound arbitrary but so be it...it simply comes to a point where that critical mass of people who have chosen to set aside their differences forces the recalcitrant to (a) quit & go Amish/Hasidic or (b) or induces them to join forces with the majority.
Sorry, Diana. Didn't mean to sound wiser than I am. Frankly, I myself sometimes have trouble figuring out Razib's central point on many issues. The "boy" is often unnecessarily cryptic. :-)
As for Hitchens' latest, see this hilarious review by Michael Kinsley.
I found that review very funny too - at least the first page. The second got a bit goddy for me.
About the sterility issue -- yes yes yes. I've been hanging around atheist groups for the past few weeks in NYC.
So what are atheists then? The ice-9 of belief systems? We freeze everything up but do not bring forth our own young?
I'm a Christian, but I found the article quite well thought out. Thanks for presenting a sensible point of view. For an atheist. ;)
With respect to the content of religious belief: actually, to people who believe in living truthfully, yes, the content does, in fact, matter. For example, children can be taught that they must learn to appreciate and/or love their neighbours because otherwise the evil goat-god who lives in the trees and watches everything they do will eat them. Now, we could say that this is a permissible thing to do because of the probable resulting beneficial tendencies toward community building, promotion of charity, generosity, tolerance etc. However we forget that we have a)lied to the child b)taught the child that one acts morally only when coerced, and only when at risk of being observed/caught and c)rendered the child unfit to think decent self-reflective thoughts about a world in which no evil goat-god exists, but in which all the rest of us do. Basing the child's current and future way of understanding the world and that child's place in the world on a frightening and non-existent evil goat-god (or the omniscient, benevolent tooth-fairy) is simply mendacious and unnecessary. To the extent that we can teach our children to be good without recourse to such matters, the egregious addition of the goat-god/tooth-fairy can only be coercive and harmful. Yes. The content matters.
nina,
please address the argument at hand not the straw-men of your imaginings
1) i didn't make a functionalist/instrumentalist argument for the utility of religiosity, so drop the righteous "truth must win out!" pose.
2) "the quest for truth" does not exist in a vacuum of conditions and priorities. to be short about it, i find the quest for atheist re-education (i.e., "truth") to be way down on the list of "TODOs" for this world. addressing malnutrition, for example, would be way higher on the list.
3) to some extent truth is the luxury of those without want. i am without want, and my family has traditionally been without want. i, and we, pursue intellectual subjects with interest, with gusto. to perceive the world as it is, and to play with ideas, that is life. but my stomach is full and my indulgences legion. the majority of the world's population live lives girded by illusion, falsehood, superstition. i grant that. but the majority of the world's population do not live lives of grand comfort or security. when the second is addressed i am willing to explore the possibility of a pro-active jihad for truth. until then truth is but one supplicant amongst many.
4) and to be frank about it, i find the stance of some atheists that what people believe apart from how people behave matters rather religious. if men bow down before the lie that does not negate the grand beauty and elegance of the universe as it is. it existed before us and it will bear witness after us.
for the record, there was an infantile hindu who posted a comment accusing me of being a crypto-muslim because i made an unflattering comment about hindus (?). that is rich, especially when my anti-islamic comments have elicited accusations that i'm an orientalist stooge. in any case, i will offer that it is interesting that my dismissals and condescension toward christianity has not resulted in any such childish responses from christians (though i do find the bible-bot spamming irritating). i have to say that i'm quite glad i live in christendom ;-) centuries of attacks by religious skeptics seem to have resulted in at least a modicum of a thick skin. i salute you followers of christ!
i want to make my response to nina a bit more formal and precise. she says:
To the extent that we can teach our children to be good without recourse to such matters, the egregious addition of the goat-god/tooth-fairy can only be coercive and harmful.
the morality schtick is pretty irrelevant and off topic, i've already stated elsewhere and here that i think that religion and ethics have no necessary connection. that is, our 'moral sense' is to a great extent a combination of our evolutionary propensities, our rational faculties embedded within contingent social matrices. religion gets mixed up with this, but it isn't really a cause of anything IMO. but, she does bring up the issue of "teaching" and the harmful effect of lies. let's assume that the bowing down to false gods (let's assume all gods are false) do have some deleterious effect, ceteris paribus. how can we remove this negative decrement from human well being? we teach! we preach!
ok, this is where it gets problematic for me. human beings are awake on average about 16 hours (OK, ideally). of those 16 hours allocate about 8 (OK, let's assume you're employed!) to work. you're left with 8, of which perhaps an hour or two can be allotted to eating and eliminating (you eat fast and crap it out efficiently). now we're down to 6 hours. in that 6 hours you can teach, educated, etc. i myself have talked religion with my friends when i was younger. i group up a half mormon town where the population was invariantly christian or christian identified, and atheists were unknown. i 'witnessed,' and even convinced 2 nominal christians to admit that they were really atheists. in other words, i did allocate some portion of the 6 hours of my life to talking religion. that being said, i helped two people leave religion. i speak as someone who isn't ignorant of religion, and knew most atheist debating tricks. i'm also pretty friendly and get alone with people well. my point is this: talking people out of religion is really hard.
but here's the thing: there's an opportunity cost. people bow before lies, and that's bad, and, it is hard to convince them otherwise. imagine that all of america's atheists, about 5% of the population, begin devoting a fair amount of their "free" 6 hours + 20 hours on the weekends to atheist preaching. i suspect that more theists or notional theists would switch to atheism. but, consider this: what other tasks could all those hours be used for? what other volunteer work could absorb the intensity of spirit?
and that's my concern with the 'new atheism.' i'm happy that dawkins is making $$$, and serving as a 'counterpoint' to the evangelists out there. i'm happy that sam harris doesn't need to be a teaching fellow, he can just write more books and rake in the royalties. but i am not really excited about the prospect of new atheists inspiring other atheists to be go around evangelizing. i think that the idea that they'll convert people in large numbers is the godless delusion, so to speak. i also think that the energy and spirit could be funneled into other activities.
among christians there are different ways to be a 'missionary.' some protestant fundamentalists and evangelicals are pretty narrow-focused on spreading the 'good word.' their goal is to convert, and they don't really spend that much time on goodies like hospitals or literacy programs. their rationale is pretty clear: they want to convert people so they don't go to hell, and misery in this life is nothing compared to everlasting glory. i think that's appalling, mostly because i don't think there's any everlasting glory to be had. rather, i'm glad that some christians 'witness' by living a christian life and serving as an example through charitable works and service. i don't buy their religion, but the incidental byproducts bear fruit in the here & now, the only life that i believe people live.
as an atheist i don't think that bowing before necessarily false gods is abominable, nor do i believe it consigns immortal souls to hell. from molecules to molecules we are, whether we believe in truth or not. human lives are short and often miserable. as an atheist i think that i have as much dignity and right to respect as a believer, and i am glad there are people out there speaking for me and defending 'our' rights in this religious world. that being said, i don't think that atheism is the 'good news' that we need to get out there at the cost of other activities. i do not believe we have eternity in front of us, our lives are short and finite, our time is a scarce resource.
some of you might say that 'we can have it all.' i don't think so, if all includes a conversion of a large proportion of the population toward atheism. that requires a lot of inducements and incentives. 70 years of totalitarian communist rule did not destroy russian orthodoxy.
It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on Sweden and how we became such a secular country some day. As an atheistic Christian democrat I think that it is important not to forget that "extreme religiousness" also harm big groups of people (e.g. homosexuals) and I think that Dawkins and Harris actually helps people to get courage to stand up to the more creasy religious belief.
"the godless delusion"
Good one. Gonna have to use that sometime.
Huh? Why can't beliefs be both silly and dangerous at the same time? Heard of the Branch Davidians?
"but i am not really excited about the prospect of new atheists inspiring other atheists to be go around evangelizing. "
Razib, that's my point about affiliation. Atheists aren't good at that - affiliation in fact isn't the point of atheism. I think it was James Randi who said that there's isn't a hobby called non-stamp collecting.
Ethical Culture was supposed to fill in the gap. It was (and is, I think) mainly well-heeled Jews who couldn't take the crap anymore but who recognized the need for an affiliative framework that would transmit the message of humanism intergenerationally. Nice folks - but a bit bloodless. This is not a criticism - just an observation.
This is where we get back to what Murdoch said: "But what led us to conceive of him does exist and is constantly pictured." Is this not content as much as process? If we take the process of the god-creation (the wonderment, the curiosity, the capacity for -- let's be honest -- joyous enchantment) -- do we get on the slippery slope towards God?
I think you've left one thing out of your calculations. People -- religious or not -- do not always need to be in conflict over religion.
I'm no longer a believer, but I used to be a religious Jew. My husband and I were usually willing, and sometimes volunteered, to work for Christian co-workers on their holy days and they did the same for us.
My feeling is, the state should not make accomodations for holy days at all. Public holidays should NOT be based on religious observance. (No more Christmas holiday.) Government services should be provided and staffed every day, and every effort should be made to make sure public servants represent the diversity of the public they serve.
And I would like to see the state deliberately and vigorously cultivate an attitude not merely of religious tolerance, but of respect for fellow citizens *as individuals*.
I've found this set of posts quite enlightening. I want to mention that one of your sticking points has a (relatively) simple solution that I call 5 of 7. I'm not claiming originality, just that I've never seen it before. Undoubtedly someone else came up with it first.
If you need enough workers you organize them into 7s, with five of them at work on any given day. Let them work out when each of them is on duty.
I came up with this while trying to figure out how you'd organize a completely secular society, and using a summer I spent working in a steel mill as a child as a point of departure. Trying to fit a 5 day work week into a week that has 21 shifts leads to this rather odd schedule called a swing shift. It's very unhealthy - it's a constant disruption of the circadian rhythms, more or less like being constantly jet lagged.
John Roth
It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on Sweden and how we became such a secular country some day. As an atheistic Christian democrat I think that it is important not to forget that "extreme religiousness" also harm big groups of people (e.g. homosexuals) and I think that Dawkins and Harris actually helps people to get courage to stand up to the more creasy religious belief.
1) sweden isn't that secular. yes, compared to the USA, or most first world countries, but a majority of the population are not atheists.
2) that being said, organized religion is weak. yes. but organized religion != religion. and, is organized religion more truthless than unorganized superstition? the problem with dawkins & harris isn't that they focus on fundamentalists and religious radicals who wish to impose a regressive social vision on society, it is that they make an ostentatious point of targeting moderates with who are not regressive reactionaries. moderate religionists may hold non-wack social views but still adhere to a false supernatural perception of the world. some atheists may hold a true view of the non-supernatural nature of the world, but hold wack social views (e.g., lots of white nationalists/supremacists are atheists).
3) so again, we're caught between a conflation between the instrumentalist promotion of the Good Society, and the principled rejection of those who hold to Falsehood. i'm pretty obviously more interested in the former. but if Truth is what you care about, then social values should be irrelevant. now, it obviously isn't black or white, but some of the new atheist narrative seems to be leaning toward a principled rejection of Falsehood.
Shira,
You say: "People -- religious or not -- do not always need to be in conflict over religion." Then you say: "No more Christmas holiday."
I can't think of a better way to throw the Christian-based majority into turmoil than doing away with Christmas as the national holiday. I try to be polite on comment lines, but forgive me if I say that anyone who says we should do away with Christmas has got their head up their ass.
People do not need to be in conflict over religion if they use common sense. Minorities can, on occasion, enrage majorities -- even when that majority is quite secure. Suggesting doing away with Christmas as a national holiday is a perfect example of that.
i celebrate xmas with gusto. is it fundamentally a pan-religious holiday, one reason that extremist xtians often reject it (e.g., the first 'war against xmas' was on the part of the puritans of england during the english civil war). i do not fear the word christ for it is just a word....
[stupid comment deleted - please shut the fuck up, you have a low IQ]
Well, Christ isn't just a word to me, but "have yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is just a song. I became much happier when I gave in and began celebrating the old winter wonderland, sleighbells & lights yadda yadda. Loads of harmless, nonsectarian fun. Merry Christmas, world!!
And to all, a good night.
People do not need to be in conflict over religion if they use common sense. Minorities can, on occasion, enrage majorities -- even when that majority is quite secure. Suggesting doing away with Christmas as a national holiday is a perfect example of that.
It's in practice not a holiday for a large segment of the population. We aren't subsistence farmers taking the sled to church on Christmas morning anymore. People like Christmas but they also like their services not to shut down for several days in a row and I imagine don't like to die in holiday pileups. Does Christmas need to be an official holiday for all eternity, or just an optional one? (although I am not expecting it to be abolished in most Western countries before hell freezes over, in practice I imagine more and more people are working on Christmas)
The opening article was quite intelligent. Some of the responses have also been, and some not so much.
Now, as a Christian, I would like to comment on some of the comments.
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"As an atheistic Christian democrat I think that it is important not to forget that "extreme religiousness" also harm big groups of people (e.g. homosexuals)"
I agree. More evil has been wrought "in the name of religion" than for any other cause.
True born-from-above Christians recognize this fact and abhor it.
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"My feeling is, the state should not make accomodations for holy days at all. Public holidays should NOT be based on religious observance. (No more Christmas holiday.) Government services should be provided and staffed every day, and every effort should be made to make sure public servants represent the diversity of the public they serve.
"And I would like to see the state deliberately and vigorously cultivate an attitude not merely of religious tolerance, but of respect for fellow citizens *as individuals*"
Something else I can agree with. We weren't called to create public policy, but to support it.
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"organized religion is weak. yes. but organized religion != religion. and, is organized religion more truthless than unorganized superstition?"
I hate organized religion. And in fact, the teachings of the New Testament vigorously discouraged it.
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"I can't think of a better way to throw the Christian-based majority into turmoil than doing away with Christmas as the national holiday."
I wish they WOULD do away with Christmas. Not only is it secularized and commercialized, it's not even the birthdate of Jesus. If Jesus was in His grave, He would be turning in it.
Christmas detracts from the True Message.
'I hate organized religion'...
but disorganized religion descends into chaos, and tends not to be transmitted to the next generation. To endure even the most otherworldly of faiths must take institutional form.
"but disorganized religion descends into chaos, and tends not to be transmitted to the next generation. To endure even the most otherworldly of faiths must take institutional form."
The Gospel spread quite well before Christianity descended into splintered opposing groups. ;)
Spread even further with a little help from the worlds preeminent organizational structure - the Roman Empire.
This issue makes me wonder if it will be a problem when effective anti-aging therapies are developed. Lets say that the SENS therapies (which will be mostly somatic gene therapy and stem cell based regeneration) become available here in the U.S. or in Asia, where people get on the plane. Would the neighbors, who might be strong christians, have a problem with this? Some christians have no problem with efforts to cure aging. Others seem to think its against their religion.
Do you guys here think this will be a problem? Or do you think that anti-aging will be treated as "live and let live" by most Americans?
Although I enjoyed Razib's perspective on the ongoing discussion about religious diversity, I would like to clarify an important point about Christian Science. Christian Science isn't about rejecting modern medicine. It's about choosing to rely on systematic spiritual prayer that we've proved effective in our own lives. The well being of children is primary to us, and at any time we are free to utilize whatever form of healthcare proves most effective for them. In most cases, that's Christian Science, based on Christ Jesus' healing ministry. It has a 140 year record of healing, which many of us around the world have found to be essential to the health of ourselves and our children. It is always a tragedy when any child dies--for whatever reason--However, I can attest to the fact that there are many of us who wouldn't be alive today if it weren't for the healing power of Christian Science we experienced as children.
April,
Do you have any peer-reviewed studies to prove your claims?
As it was clearly so effective in her case, I was going to ask April if she could get the Christian Scientists to pray systematically for all of the chidren who die from malaria.
ChiLdren
My proof reading has gone to shit.
I read a bit hastily. April wrote, "In most cases, that's Christian Science, based on Christ Jesus' healing ministry."
The "in most cases" is a quite a qualifier. If a child is in a serious car accident, is prayer the treatment modality or do you take him to the emergency room? If he has leukemia, do you pray, or take him to an oncologist?
"In most cases," illness is self-limiting and the body heals itself. It happened to me, no christ involved.