Letters to the Editor
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This atheist is not fearful of the supernatural
An earlier letter writer suspects that we atheists may be fearful of...something. The letter writer does not specify what that is, but I'm guessing it's supposed to be either a wrathful old man with a long white beard, wearing robes and sandals, or else a red-skinned dude with horns and a pitchfork.
I don't fear such myths. I do fear human cruelty, disease, and natural disasters. Of those three, human cruelty disturbs me the most, particularly when it is the product of human ignorance.
I dislike religion and I am saddened by the notion that people feel they must worship a supernatural being. I particularly despise it when people obediently rely on what is written in a book. However, religion is different from spirituality. The idea that there is something greater than ourselves, and as yet unrevealed to us, makes perfect sense. Without that sense of wonder and mystery, life would be very sterile.
As for gorillas and other animals, I would not be surprised at all if they believed not in God, but the Devil. They suffer horribly from cruelty deliberately inflicted on them by people. We burn, shock, beat, drown, cut, mutilate, poison, and freeze them. We starve them, deny them water, and keep them in cages. We take away their young, kill them for sport or fashion, and reduce them to the status of toasters in our industrial food system. Maybe they look to a God for salvation -- from us.
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Yeah, it is ok for a scientist to believe in God.
The only way it wouldn't be ok is if the scientist took his beliefs, that are not based on testable evidence, to be facts. Believing in God is just fine. Believing in God and allowing it to trump all the scientific evidence merely shows the person is not really a scientist.
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On the Origins of Religion
Religion was not initially developed as a mechanism for social control. For starters, the roots of what could be called 'religion' reach back to a time when social order was determined by ability and lineage- no control mechanism was needed. The only argument you could make for relgion-as-authority would be a subset of social order- the medicine man or high priest or what have you- whose authority was derived from his cleverness in acquiring and holding the position, and was not in general the final authority of the group.
We have already attributed wonder and awe at the natural world, and especially those things whose animating forces are not immediately obvious to the simple mind- we can call this 'spirituality'.
Another component of religious tradition is the ritual of worship. This would be the first 'learned' aspect of religion (as 'spirituality' is innate), where certain actions, movements, or protocols are passed down as mental traditions (as opposed to genetic traits). Worship is as instinctive as physical attraction or motherly love; do you never find yourself lifting your face up to the sun on a cold winter day, feeling it's unseen warmth through your closed eyelids? Have you never bent by a stream to lift the water with your hands? We do these things by nature, by virtue of our place in the universe. Music is also closely tied to worship, spirituality, and nature. Many contemporary bush-tribes (not that Bush) use song and dance to incite delusions or trances, or to pray to whatever for rain, or someone's health- to appeal to that which we cannot control. This latter aspect we can also attribute to the decline of religion in the face of modern science and the technological ability it provides us.
So I would reject the simplistic notion that religion came to be simply as a mode of social control- our anger, contentiousness, greed, selfishness, and aggression sorted that out long before we could grunt, or as the author points out, before we were even human. Indeed these are still the physiological motivations behind religious practices, though perhaps much more subliminally. I would posit that religion-as-authority was second-tier in almost all societies up until the fall of the Roman Empire. Religion was certainly a powerful mode of control, and at least for the ancient Hebrews the final authority- but overall the priests and medicine men advised the kings and chiefs, they did not command them. I say after the Roman Empire because this was one of the first empires to assimilate an established religion into its sovereignty, and the first to have its authority retained by the Church after the empire collapsed.
I am no historian, these are just the conclusions I am able to reach with my limited knowledge. And yes, I like to read the sound of my own voice.
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To: alc
I am consumed with the notion of whether there is a God or whether there is not. I tend to the atheistic position, but really, agnosis may be the only rational way to view the matter with the beauty of wonderment and inquiry intact.
A theory that makes sense to me is one that says religion and deity is something our human minds have conjured, not from superstition or fear, but that religion is a product of the human ego designed to give us hope. We are so infatuated with our being that we cannot fathom the idea that we exist here only for a short time, regardless of the good we might do. We give ourselves a need to do right or even to simply go on because there is something out there for us that transcends our human frailty. I am nearly convinced this is true.
Don't be convinced. The idea that religion exists just to soothe our egos does not make much sense on close examination. That's just something someone pulled out of their posterior to sound humble. In the realm of religion, or spirituality, or what you might call it, there are so many things to experience for yourself. You just have to keep wanting to learn, keep searching, be observant, and you will find what you are looking for.
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RE: What makes people controlling and judgmental?
"Can any atheist here explain to me -- where do you people get YOUR judgmental fury from, since it's not religion?
Where do atheists get the idea they can tell other people how to think?
Religious people learn this behavior from the Bible. But where do atheists learn it from?
Atheists -- please explain."
Let me take a stab at this.
What you mistake for fury is actually frustration - that as progressive, forward thinking individuals we still have to live side-by-side with so-called adults who still believe in the Easter Bunny. Get it?
Most people who believe in spirits and (G)od are pliable, putty-brains who only believe because they were told to. No critical thought. No observation. Just blind belief in a set of stories told long ago by people with little understanding of the physical world.
George Bush is an extreme example of clouded, belief based thinking. But make no mistake - there are millions of others out there who are just as gullible and who will make decisions for the rest of us based on their misguided beliefs.
Action without proof is a slippery slope - it causes some to believe in false gods and others to start wars.
Now do you get it?