I like Alain de Botton. He’s an atheist, but the vision he conveys in his writings is far from the caricature of the joyless, cynical worldview that plagues the popular conception of that term.
In an article in the British magazine Standpoint de Botton proposes an acceptance of the impulses that led us to create religion. I think that for freethinkers this kind of acceptance is essential to coming into a healthy relationship with religion. Too often, the New Atheist movement excoriates religion as all-bad. It’s not. And to a certain extent, whether or not it is based on any truth whatsoever is irrelevant to the world’s billions of faithful.
Renouncing all religion keeps the argument on the same field as the believer. It keeps the argument on the field of belief where religion is something created by the Other. For theists, religion was created by God. For non-believers, religion is created by those crazy irrational people.
But, I think that non-believers, if we’re going to be consistent, need to recognize that WE created these systems. And there must be reasons why. Lighting a candle in the darkness, what those committed to reason have always striven for, is going to be achieved not by denying our nature but by acknowledging it and reclaiming it. As de Botton writes:
The tragedy of modern atheism is to have ignored just how many aspects of religion continue to be interesting even when the central tenets of the great faiths are discovered to be entirely implausible. Indeed, it’s precisely when we stop believing in the idea that gods made religions that things become interesting, for it is then that we can focus on the human imagination which dreamt these creeds up. We can recognise that the needs which led people to do so must still in some way be active, albeit dormant, in modern secular man. God may be dead, but the bit of us that made God continues to stir.
One of the most common criticisms of post-modern society is that it is without hope. Without meaning and substance. I’ve often argued that this is true, but it doesn’t mean that the movement was entirely wrong. Post-modernism was a reaction, and like all adolescent movements, it was a starting point. We have torn down our idols but we have yet to acknowledge the impulses which led us to erect them in the first place.
I don’t know that I’d necessarily say that we need to all go out and join First Church of Gotham, Secular. But, I don’t think it would be a bad thing – to have a cathedral to go to to escape from the hustle and bustle of life which would remind us, visually and viscerally (and that was the purpose of cathedrals) of our smallness, not before god but before everything that is bigger than us – the community, nature, art, our imaginations.
This idea from de Botton is something I’ve been wishing existed for years. I hope that it’s something that catches fire and an idea about which I’m going to spend some time pondering.
P.S. – I haven’t drunk the coolaid. I’m not saying that a secular religion is the cure for existential dread, or even that we need to cure it. I just think it’s an interesting idea, and one that I find exciting. Comment away!
JB
Not sure I have much to add except to say that this strikes me as absolutely correct. Good post.
I think I may have some other thoughts on this but they are not fully formed at the moment.
I think admitting 1) that there are aspects of religion that are positive and 2) that all positions are faith based are two things I’d like to hear every atheist admit to. If you’re truly a free thinker then agreeing to those two things shouldn’t be challenging.
there are aspects of religion that are positive. There I admitted it. Of course, I tend to believe that these things are not necessarily dependant on religion. Religion provides important sense of community and organizing principles. So does Irish music. the arc of religions tend to be that they begin as subcultrues and grow into mainstream cultures. The believing in God part can be seen as secondary in nature. The development of ancient Greek culture and thought for instance, can be seen as a movement away from existing religions and toward a more secular philosophy. It worked ok for them from what I can tell.
“All positons are faith based.” I don’t know about this one. My first reaction is to say that all tautologies are either false or meaningless. I can’t see how this tautology is an exception to that rule.
I’d agree that belief in god does seem unnecessary in order to receive the benefits of religion. That’s one reason why I think that some kind of secular-community organization would be interesting.
I do understand the statement “all positions are faith based.” I think what’s being referred to is that in order to make a judgement you always have to make a little leap. But, this is such a commonplace thing that we don’t usually refer to all judgments as faith. If you’re being very precise, then one would have to get into the old Philosophy 101 arguments: “How do I know this chair is real?” “How do I know that YOU exist?” Those types of things. At the end of the day, I do make a little leap in reasoning that, yes, the chair I’m sitting in is real. I’m not in a coma, being given hallucinations by mad scientists. There isn’t a malicious demon controlling my thoughts and convincing me that the chair is real, when in actuality I’m in hell, spearing myself on something terrible. Those things are possible. But, I make the judgement that they aren’t true.
It’s all about probability. But, in ordinary language using the terms of probability would be really, really, really tedious. And, I like girls and I’ve always liked having them like me, so I chose not to say things like “I’m going to sit in this object that I perceive to be a chair and is mostly likely a chair.” I just sit in the chair.
I think we confuse our terms a little when we say that all judgments are faith-based. But, I think that’s a natural consequence of ordinary language. We’re not being precise.
Something I’ve been thinking about a bit recently is – what is faith? I read a statement this morning by someone who’s opinion I generally respect, but who has kind of a whifty, new-agey, spiritual bent – in a generally non-invasive way that is only hinted at. Anyway. He talked about faith as something that you get, that you don’t have control over. It’s a reaction to something and you just feel it and it IS. It’s a connection to something higher than yourself. A blessing you receive.
Now, I’ve certainly had those feelings. But, having that sense of “connectedness” does not imply to me that I’m in touch with something intelligent that created me and everything around me. That seems like the least likely scenario. It’s wish fulfillment. I think we have an amazing capacity for interpreting events and feelings in such a way that they confirm our presuppositions. Reason and analysis is the tool we have for stepping outside of that experience and getting a little closer to the truth.
Anyway. That’s a little rambly. But, I’d like to hear some opinions on what faith is.
I think that your explication gets very much to the nature of my tautological critique of the statrement “all positions are faith based.” In order to make that statement work you have define “faith ” so broadly that the statement itself becomes elf refrential and therefore meaningless. “Faith” surely means something more than the general premise upon which you base your understanding of reality on. I also thought of Descartes when thinking about this question. Yes it is a leap of faith to believe the world we percieve is actually there but my dog clearly believes the same thing and he can’t be said to have “faith.”
Main Entry: 1faith
Pronunciation: \ˈfāth\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural faiths \ˈfāths, sometimes ˈfāthz\
Etymology: Middle English feith, from Anglo-French feid, fei, from Latin fides; akin to Latin fidere to trust — more at bide
Date: 13th century
1 a : allegiance to duty or a person : loyalty b (1) : fidelity to one’s promises (2) : sincerity of intentions
2 a (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) : complete trust
3 : something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs
synonyms see belief
— on faith : without question
Wow that was some bad typing. Sorry.
A faithless religion.
It would seem an oxymoron to much of the Western world but perhaps the closest example of a faithless religion we have is the much maligned and demonized Church Of Scientology. If we were to take Zen Buddhism and place it in a 1950’s nuclear fallout shelter in Oklahoma for a few hundred years, you’d come up with a religion that looks very much like Scientology. A bit paranoid, militant, obsessively secretive with an ‘us vs. them’ world view, but both religions share a commitment to pulling people out of needless pain and misery.
Zen Buddhism and Scientology do not demand a belief in a higher being. They simply say, “Do XY, and you will have Z result.” The existence of God is implicit. As the student progresses, becoming more capable and self-aware, they experience life more fully and can detach from that which is impermanent and temporary, thereby coming closer to the permanence of God.
From this point forward, the similarities of Zen and Scientology appear to radically diverge. Where Zen would use meditation techniques, prayer and fasting, Scientology would employ the equivalent of a psychologist with a lie detector. Never the less, no matter the techniques employed, the goals were identical.
I applaud any honest approach to help people realize their desire to improve oneself, be it physically, mentally or spiritually. However, since I find no improvement mechanisms whatsoever within popular main-stream religions, I find them disingenuous if not outright dishonest. In days past, condemned Christians would ask which lion was the hungriest. Today, I could likely change a Protestant into a Catholic just by threatening him with a paper cut.
With this in mind, I gladly join your Church of the Faithless. However, in the most Ayn Randian way possible, I’d like to know “Whats in for me and do I have to take you’re word on ‘faith’?”
I think admitting 1) that there are aspects of religion that are positive and 2) that all positions are faith based are two things I’d like to hear every atheist admit to. If you’re truly a free thinker then agreeing to those two things shouldn’t be challenging.