Reader Mark called my attention to an article in Monday’s Washington Post: “In light of the Paris attacks, is it time to eradicate religion?” According to Ben Goren’s Rule, any question posed in a newspaper article is invariably answered in the negative, and indeed, it is here. That’s expected, of course, when the author is, as in this case, a Protestant theologian. But his answer is unsatisfying and, surprisingly, the article is poorly written—even more surprising given that the author is Miroslav Volf, identified thusly by the Post:
Miroslav Volf teaches theology at Yale University and directs Yale Center for Faith and Culture. His most recent book is “Flourishing: Why We Need Religion in a Globalized World” (Yale University Press, 2016).
In fact, Wikipedia, in a very long article, says that Volf is “one of the most celebrated theologians of our day.” Clearly Volf is a Sophisticated Theologian™, so we can expect him to give us the very best arguments for retaining religion. But he fails.
Here is my summary of Volf’s main points (his words are indented):
Religion is here to stay, and in fact is growing.
First, if the hope for the world depends on eradication of religion, we should all despair. Religions are in fact growing in absolute and relative terms. In 1970, there were 0.71 billion unaffiliated or non-religious people, while in 2050, there will be 1.2 billion. That’s impressive growth, until you compare it with the projected growth of religions.
Between 1970 and 2050, the number of Hindus is projected to grow from 0.43 to nearly 1.4 billion, the number of Muslims from 0.55 billion to 2.7 billion and the number of Christians from 1.25 billion to 2.9 billion. And due to the immense popularity of the democratic ideal, religious adherents are becoming increasingly politically assertive.
Religions may be growing in absolute numbers, but that’s because the world population is growing. What’s important is whether religion are growing in “relative terms”, that is, is the proportion of believers increasing? And here Volf’s claim that this is also true is just wrong. A Pew survey this year shows that, among all religions, only Islam is growing in relative terms, while the others are holding steady or shrinking. The estimated projections over the next 35 years, when there will be a 35% increase in the world population:
Well, be that as it may, Volf goes on:
Religion will be with us forever.
The sooner that humanity either eradicates or quarantines off religion, the better our world will be. This conclusion would be too hasty, however.
. . . It is impossible to eradicate or quarantine religion. Any attempt to do so would result in far more bloodshed than religious people have perpetrated throughout their long histories.
Note the tropes of pest control: “eradication” and “quarantine.” Apparently he sees opponents of religion as an Orkin-like movement bent on annihilation. In fact, antitheists envision a peaceful process of secularization based on changing people’s minds and fixing the social conditions that give rise to faith.
And as for the “impossibility” of that happening, it is in fact precisely what is happening in the U.S. and Europe. Northern Europe in particular was once quite religious but is now largely atheistic. The inhabitants of countries like France and Sweden have given up their childish things—perhaps because social conditions have improved. And even the U.S., where Volf lives, is becoming more secular.
So why else should we want religion to remain with us. Volf gives mor reasons:
Most world religions (including the Abrahamic ones) promote a message of peace and tolerance.
For most religions, the distinctions between true and false religion, justice and injustice, and good and evil are central. Each religion insists on the goodness of the way of life it promotes, rejecting other ways of life as imperfect, misguided or even wicked.
Also, most world religions are based either on positive revelation (Moses, Jesus or Muhammad) or on spiritual enlightenment (Buddha or Confucius) granted to foundational figures.
But all world religions have resources not just to avoid underwriting violence but to promote cultures of peace in pluralistic environments. Religions have significant resources precisely because they claim to be true for all human beings at all times and places, as I argue in my new book “Flourishing: Why We Need Religion in a Globalized World.”
Yes, and it those absolute and timeless truth claims that are causing problems. The “significant resources” are not resources but bugs—bugs of dogmatism. A religion that doesn’t evolve by responding to secular currents of morality, currents that involve greater justice for women, gays, minorities, and so on, is a religion that harmful and retrograde. Clearly, right now Islam isn’t able to promote peace in “pluralistic environments.” France is one such pluralistic environment. Doesn’t Volf see how the facts contradict his claims?
Religions embrace pluralistic and enlightened values.
It is in this section that Volf really appears blinkered. Here are what Volf sees as the “four fundamental values that religion embraces” (he actually gives only three):
First, equal moral value of all citizens. Because world religions are universalistic, they affirm the equal value of all people. They do not distinguish between moral “insiders” and moral “outsiders.” They all embrace some version of the Golden Rule with its underlying principle of reciprocity.
Second, freedom of religion. World religions can and many do embrace full freedom of religion, which includes freedom to adopt and change religion as well as freedom to propagate religion.
Third, separation of religion and rule. Just because world religions have what Nietzsche called “two worlds” account of reality, transcendent and mundane, and give primacy to the transcendent realm, they contain a clear impulse to construe “religion” and “politics” as two distinct, though intersecting, cultural territories.
For the sake of the identity and reputation of the religions themselves and for the sake of justice and peace in the world, religions need permanent reformation.
At the heart of reformation must lie the conviction that, as the Apostle Peter put it in the first public sermon he preached, that “we must obey God rather than any human authority” (Acts 5:29), asserting that “religion” and “state” are two distinct cultural systems. Such reformation of religions will not stop the blood and tears from flowing, but religions will no longer be implicated in the carnage.
I think he screwed up here, for Peter’s statement is the precise basis for religious malfeasance. I suspect a typo or poor editing. But at any rate, to expect Muslims who favor sharia law to accept a distinction between the political and the religous is to expect a miracle.
In the end, I think that Volf’s love of liberal Christianity has blinded him to what many religions really preach, and what many of the faithful really believe. He appears to think that, if properly interpreted, all religions are as tolerant and benign as his own. But that’s the rub, for “properly interpreted” is tautological, which to Volf seems to mean “religions that see the world the way mine does.” The fact is that religions don’t and can’t, for the conflicting moral codes of religion cannot be harmonized, based as they are on incompatible beliefs about gods and what they want.
Volf’s essay is, I suspect, based largely on fear: a fear that many religions—particularly the one whose adherents struck in Paris—aren’t really as benign as his own, and will continue to inspire murder, suffering, and oppression. Perhaps he also fears the increasing level of nonbelief in his own land. To quell these fears, Volf spends an entire article telling us that “true” religion doesn’t do these things. But of course it does, and Volf’s apologetics, which call for even more religion after a religiously-inspired mass murder, are ironic, lame, and pathetic.
By all means let us have “true” religion: religion that is tolerant, not divisive, and having a genuinely universal and beneficent moral code. That “true religion”, by the way, is called “humanism”.
I saw a documentary on National Geographic about how the catholic church helped war criminal Paul Touvier. He was eventually arrested in a priory in Nice. The catholic church also helped war criminals from Rwanda and pedophiles get away with their crimes. So much for the seperation of religion and rule.
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It’s the old subject without an object thing again. When someone so strongly believes in the Christian transcendent, as does this theologian, then reality conforms to irreality rather than vice-versa. The entire article is a plus for ‘my new book,’ nor is there anything like a reasoned argument in it.
Yale should be ashamed, though recent reports indicate that many Yalies have no shame. The institution still offers theology and divinity degrees, I suppose, because of its Protestant religious origin (and continuing endowments). Ridiculous.
Sorry: it’s ‘plug’ not ‘plus’ and it’s his, Volf’s, new book, not mine (ain’t got one).
But that’s the entire problem!
First, of course, one must determine which god it is we are supposed to obey. Having done that, it is then necessary to identify the demands of that god.
And all that presupposes that submission to divine will is even a good thing in the first place! How do we know that the gods have our best interests at heart and that the holy texts aren’t, in fact, cookbooks?
If the gods held press conferences, at least the first round of problems could be addressed and we could then move on to discussing the merits of the potential cookbook problem. Is it really too much to ask an all-powerful world-creator with a divine message of ultimate importance to get a verified MyFaceTwit account these days?
But, of course, the real situation is that we have the priests speaking on behalf of the gods and insisting that we mustn’t question the priests when they tell us what the gods want. Is it therefore any surprise that what the gods want is first and foremost the preservation of the priestly order and secondly whatever it is that the priests themselves desire?
b&
Exactly.
In a secular world, recognizing our limitations, we must remain ready to modify our beliefs by appeal to evidence, reason and argument.
“we must obey God rather than any human authority” drives a dividing wedge into that process.
Religion doesn’t introduce unanimity; it fractures the process of reaching unanimity. It’s people to say to one another “I don’t have to listen to your reasoning, puny human, I have God’s word on my side!”
Which is exactly how it has worked out in practice. It’s why religions don’t converge, but continue to split into ever more thousands of sects. It’s why it has caused so much conflict. It’s why we can’t reason with ISIS, given they appeal to obeying God over any human authority. Once you allow that step, it’s open season on reason.
But Ben, God is love!
Unless one is wrestling with theodicy, in which case His Ways are Beyond Human Understanding (and therefore might well be Azathoth for all we know).
That’s definitely what the problem looks like, when you look at that quote in context (not that it necessarily happened, of course – preceding it is a magical jailbreak): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%205&version=NIV
The apostles, having been miraculously freed from prison, have been preaching their version of religion in the temple, and the temple authorities have arrested them again. The quote from Peter is him saying that he regards the priests as just men, while he thinks his religion comes straight from his god. But, of course, the priests think exactly the same thing, and think that Peter (who has been blaming them for Jesus’ death) should thus be executed.
The only character in the story who comes out looking OK is Gamaliel, who says you shouldn’t kill people for claiming they are sent by God, on the grounds that if your version is the right one, God will make sure it succeeds anyway, and false religions will fail. It’s an argument against blasphemy laws.
I can’t think why Volf quoted the verse he did. It’s one of the worst messages to take away from the story.
Standard operating procedure for theologians. The best example…is how the story of Doubting Thomas is used to demonstrate why it’s good to believe without seeing the evidence for yourself instead of HOLY FUCKING SHIT DUDE JUST THRUST HIS HAND IN A ZOMBIE’S SHAMBLING CORPSE!
b&
My microbiology teacher used to call Doubting Thomas the first microbiologist, because he insisted on evidence. I joke to students that he is the patron saint of scientists.
Since the “equality” is always measured against a spiritual background, the only real universalism you get in religion is one where everybody and everything is under the authority of God. So? How is that going to create a common system of agreement, given that people can’t agree on God? What it is, what it’s like, or what it wants is completely up for grabs because no matter what the interpretation, God is always deemed to be on the side of “good.”
Big deal. Maybe the flaws in this are only obvious from an atheistic stance. Otherwise, it’s just too easy to frame one’s own view of God as the inclusive view against which all others are measured.
Bottom line, if all value and worth are derived from a divine foundation then in no way does this entail that all people have equal value and worth. It means that the ultimate value and worth of human beings can only be measured against how close they are to God. We may start on even footing, perhaps, but given that religions are special revelations on how to get closer to God — and what makes us distant from God — a hierarchy is automatically introduced. And as we all know, this hierarchy can mean anything and go anywhere at all because it transcends reason and involves the supernatural.
Seems to me that it takes a lot of faith to kill for God and call it an act of love.
“some version of the Golden Rule” is precisely the undoing of the theological framework.
Volf is undermined by not reconciling just how many versions there are for a conception of the ‘Golden Rule’ or even just the good life. Some bloke out there claims the good life is to squash out as many Jews as possible and he renders this justification from his ancient holy texts. How am I to counter this, except through reason?
Religions are roshambo. Each kills one another with no exit form the cycle except through reason.
Worse than that, it means that the ultimate value and worth of human beings can only be measured by the gods themselves. But since the gods only ever communicate with us through their priests, it means that it’s the priests who get to decide the ultimate value and worth of human beings.
Why it should be that the priests are the most valued and worthy in the eyes of the gods, and those whom the priests despise the most despised and worthless is left as an exercise for the reader.
b&
While we’re on the subject of authority, where does a deity get to claim special expertise anyway? It can’t be through godly force, because nothing is true simply because you threaten or bribe people into believing it. If it’s through knowledge, then how do we know what they say is correct without at some point going through the working? Anyone accepting a deity solely on their word without at least asking such questions is simply being emotionally led by the aura of authority, if not being outright gullible.
It is all about willingly subjugating yourself to authority because that is your nature. And doing so lovingly because the god is so much better in any and all ways than is even remotely possible for such low creatures.
You love the god not for the same reasons you love other human beings, but because you are so low and the god is so high, and you are just supposed to love it. That is just the way it it. Love it or go to hell (with a subtext something along the lines of “your choice you arrogant little shit”).
Religion is all about causing and taking advantage of what in the modern era has been labeled Stockholm Syndrome. This is the thing that has disturbed me about religion from the get go, long before I ever put any thought into it, even as a young kid. But then, I’ve always had issues with authority. Any god I’ve ever heard of, they can get in line to kiss my ass.
One of the few things Plato got right was when he described how Euthyphro struggled with the same dilemma. Is that which is good so because the gods love it, or do the gods love only that which is good? If a god’s love is all that it takes to make something good, then a good could love child rape and child rape would be good. But if the gods only love that which is good, then goodness comes from something other than the gods.
b&
This is, as you know, exactly the position that paragon of Christian scholarship WLC holds. I admire him for that. Any Christian that claims that the historical foundations of Christianity are the basis of their Christianity should hold that position or they are being either disingenuous or ignorant.
I agree with the admiration. The Christian Nation of America is dominated with personal choice acceptance (i.e., cherry picking) of church dogma that makes their faith as vacuous as the space between galaxies.
Ask theists where God gets its authority. This may take them aback. They seem to think it can be smuggled into the definition (ie the nature of God.)Nope.
My favorite answer is that God could only derive proper moral authority from the consent of the governed. Not only is it a reasonable argument, but it tends to force theists into a position where they must defend the divine right of kings against the ideals of Constitutional democracy. That makes them uncomfortable — as well it should.
…oooh…evil. That the gods should gain the consent of those they would govern? Yes, that pretty much puts paid to the notion that they have any special inhuman authority.
I can’t imagine that I won’t steal this….
b&
Yes, a good one!
The usual response is that ‘the gods’ created the world. But we have no authority (that we haven’t earned – and it goes both ways) over our children…
And of course, it keeps hitting against the thorny issue we militant atheists keep bringing up: the lack of evidence for any kind of god to begin with, never mind all the morality and spirituality piled on top of this premise. Believers can insist on “equal moral value because God” all they like, but since God doesn’t exist, it’s an empty claim. Moreover, any morality they do stumble across must either be borrowed from something else – humanists, say, or their own consciences – or sheer accident. The fact is that the three fundamentals Volf cites as good things about religion – and which make religious people good people – are all the workings and results of secular humanist philosophies.
It’s like saying “people who simplify 16/64 by removing the sixes” are good mathematicians because they end up with the correct answer. Maybe, but:
a) that’s a happy coincidence,
b) some of them are probably nicking the correct method from people who simplify 16/64 using actual mathematics, and
c) it’s going to cause problems outside that accident.
If religion – or god – only hits the right answers (i.e. gets people to behave morally) by either stealing other methods or by coincidence, isn’t that an excellent reason to not bother with it, or even to get rid of it?
I like your analogy.
Even if we were to assume supernatural beings are real, given that there is no way to identify them, how do we know it is the loving God that is whispering the instructions in our ear at any time? There’s no way to know except by our own judgment of what is good and right that it’s not Satan having a go at influencing us.
And if you actually hear the voices rather than just “feel” the message, get yourself to a doctor quick.
He’s all over the place. He tries to argue that religions aren’t politically violent at the same time he argues that the single biggest indicator of religious violence is when it gets lined to politics and that “attempts of religions to assert dominance in political societies are disastrous.” That juxtaposition of “they aren’t x…but when they are, it’s bad” reads like the old legal joke where the defense argues “my client has an alibi showing he wasn’t at the shooting – and besides, he shot in self-defense.”
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Religions also all embrace using money as a means to efficiently trade goods and services, but that doesn’t mean we need religions to have monetary exchange. The fact that the Golden Rule is pretty pan-cultural and pan-religious is an indication that it’s not causally linked to religious belief, it’s not an indication that it is (linked).
He seems to have forgotten that they all also embrace some version of slaughter of others as commanded by their deity.
Pick and choose as it pleases you.
Well in places he’s forgotten it but in other places you get the feeling he’s aware and arguing that this needs to be changed. Its very strange. On my second read through, I think the real problem in terms of cohesiveness is that he has two strong messages that don’t go together at all. He wants to write a call to action: “religions need permanent reformation.” That’s all very well and good, and he could’ve written his whole post about that and it probably would’ve come off sounding a lot better. He also wants to defend religion as it currently exists: ‘all religions share these core very good values.’
But if the latter is true, why the need for reformation? You can’t argue religion is a force for good in the world yet at the same time make a compelling case that they really really need to be changed or else bad things will continue to happen. “Needs fixing now!” and “Ain’t broke! Ain’t broke!” don’t go together, but his article seems to be trying to say both things at once.
I got that while reading it too, though I don’t think it’s intended to be that paradoxical. It’s basically “Yes, religion has problems, but it is a force for good, at least under the right circumstances”. Weak, perhaps, but not self-contradictory. I think the presentation is particularly sloppy, though.
A nice observation.
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I think the confusion derives at least in part from the fact that, as a believer, he has to believe that religions which don’t follow HIS interpretation of a God who is Good aren’t following the very concept of a God who is Good. Theology is head-butting itself up against philosophical ethics and making a bloody mess of itself.
His first two arguments amount to “religion is a fact of life”. Even if true, that does not mean we “need religion”. Cancer is a fact of life too, but we don’t need it. His other two arguments are simply wrong.
Or, more to the point, violence is also a fact of life, one which could never be completely “eradicated” from any area. And yet he’s trying to minimize violence in religion.
The heart of Volf’s argument is the unfounded hope that religion makes people do good and presumably more good than a world without religion. Aside from the fact that this is delusional thinking, I ask the following question. Even if what Volf says is true (it isn’t), what does it say about the human race that most of its members need a sky daddy to do good? Volf doesn’t understand the implications of what he writes. His view of human nature is one of despair where only adherence to the “correct” religion can make morally corrupt humans behave well.
Volf quacks like every other dreary theologian.
Just a teeny bit of general knowledge would indicate to Volf that the abrahamic g*d is a supremely violent creature who demands like violence from his unthinking followers. God is really not good!
Paris is just another instance of the disgraceful history of these religions. Islam is mirroring what coerced christianity was like until the Enightenment and the Age Of Reason.
Those humourless humans who dreamed up the allah/jehovah/whatever god have a lot to answer for. At least the Olympian gods enjoyed themselves!
Zeus and his sons enjoyed themselves. Titans were chained in the Tartarus, Prometheus was tortured, goddesses, nymphs and mortal women were raped, Marsyas was skinned, Pentheus was torn to pieces.
Even if what Volf says is true (it isn’t), what does it say about the human race that most of its members need a sky daddy to do good?
That most of them have one of the most bizarre and troubling psychological disorders ever recorded?
This argument that “we need god to be good” is too often presented as though it was a humdinger of a reply, when if anything, it’s one of the most backhanded indictments of belief possible while keeping a straight face.
LOL.
Open up the Bible or Koran and see how much those texts value Religious Pluralism.
These theologians can just be shameless.
“A Pew survey this year shows that, among all religions, only Islam is growing in relative terms, while the others are holding steady or shrinking.”
Not sure how I should feel about this trend…
A little hair of the dog that bit you.
+1
Our beloved and irascible Ben is indeed brilliant, but this maxim (at least when applied to article titles) is more well-known as Betteridge’s Law of Headlines.
Headline: Did Betteridge steal his law from Ben Goren?
😂 (← OED word of the year, btw!)
Yes. I think I might have introduced Betteridge to Jerry, but somebody else long since forgotten introduced Betteridge to me.
b&
I think Volf is unintentionally making a great case for de-fanging religion as much as possible: it’s only reliable when kept away from politics, it regards itself as all-encompassing, it’s persistent, it’s moralistic in a schism-inducing way, it’s self-assured, and it’s unreliable even as a peacemaking tool. Pretty much all three “fundamental values” he lists are imposed upon religion by secular political structures that take priority over the ambitions of any particular religious group.
The phrase “scoring an own goal” comes to mind.
“Because world religions are universalistic..”
really? name one revelation of divine order that has ever been delivered universally.
it’s always from some tiny, out of the way place, often a desert or mountain, and usually just one guy bringing the “good news” on his own say so.
Occam, bring me a razor.
I think Miroslav Volf means that all world religions pretend to apply to all people of all time. Which to me sounds rather scary. But because religion is the best thing ever (I’m paraphrasing Volf), universality is not a turn-off for him.
Points 1 – 3 are clearly aspirational and IMO their realization would move us quickly to the marginalization and ultimately the abandonment of organized religion and magical thinking.
Maybe point 4 is missing because in his early drafts the essay had an answer on how to “eradicate religion” and then it was lost in editing.
“Imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try;
No hell below us, above us only sky.
Imagine all the people living for today…”
On Saturday, after the terrorist attacks in Paris, a pianist dragged a piano into the street near the scene and played “Imagine”. The opening lines to John Lennon’s “Imagine” are some of the most radical lyrics we have ever heard in a popular song, especially considering the level of religiosity in our country.
To me, the biggest problem with religion is fostering the belief that there is a supernatural force that watches over us, aiding us when we are in need and demanding things from of us. This is pure bunk; there is no supernatural force watching over us. There is no “end of days” coming. Whatever happens on this planet is the result of natural laws that were set in motion 14 billion years ago at the Big Bang, but we can learn and understand these laws, and have some control over our environment.
We will never colonize Mars; it can’t be done. We will never have starships that can take us across the galaxy at warp speed; it is not possible. We have to realize as a species that the planet we are living on is the only planet we will ever live on. We must realize this and accept it, otherwise we will not make the decisions that are necessary to assure the survival of our species on this planet.
We cannot use the excuse that Jesus will be back any day now, so we don’t have to worry about climate change or environmental concerns. He isn’t coming back, get over it. We cannot count on supernatural forces to intercede and solve our problems or defeat our enemies. There are no angels, there are no demons.
We are facing a threat right now from ISIS who has an apocalyptic vision of an “end of days” battle between Islam and the West in which they will prevail because it will fulfill prophecy in the Koran. This is not materially different from the fundamentalist Christians who are only supporting Israel because it will bring back Jesus for their version of the “end of days” and the battle of Armageddon. These apocalyptic fantasies are a serious problem for our need to deal with the real world.
Isis must be defeated, but it will take a long term combination of military and political effort to find a solution to find any peace in the region. There are too many ethnic, tribal, and religious groups in a small area who have real or imagined grievances.
I know that we will not see religion go away in my lifetime, if ever, but I would love to see a serious politician actually come out and state that we are alone on this planet and even if we believe in a “higher power”, we must at least act as if man alone has the ability to deal with the problems we are facing, many of which we are creating for ourselves.
The “end of days” for Islam, maybe, hopefully. At least for Islamist Islam.
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PS. I mostly disagree about Mars; mostly agree about starships.
Agree with you about everything except space. We’ll get to Mars, and to other planets. We have to. If we don’t, it won’t be for technical reasons.
I believe that we will get to Mars, and maybe other planets in the solar system, but at best we will have scientific outposts there.
You are right, “Imagine” is a radical song. It is my second all-time favorite after “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” This is why that sometimes when the song is sung references to religion are deleted. If I recall correctly, this took place on “America’s Got Talent” when a religious woman sang a much edited version of the song. I also suspect that when the non-edited version is sung many listeners to do not contemplate what the song is advocating.
As a survivor of communism, I’d delete the “no possession” line.
As a survivor of communism, shouldn’t you let songwriters sing songs without having the lyrics reviewed and censored by a committee? 🙁
That was supposed to be “:)” 🙂
I’d phrase it a bit differently.
There is nothing we can do to Earth that will make Mars more hospitable or inviting than the Antarctic seafloor is today; colonizing Mars will always be a bigger challenge and crazier proposition than colonizing the Antarctic seafloor.
We may still do so in the unimaginably distant future; however, if we do, it will be the same sort of colonization as we have done on Earth. There will be no exodus; rather, new colonies will begin lives of their own with only minimal migration between the two.
But there’s an even bigger obstacle for Martian colonization…and that’s that the asteroids are themselves much more inviting for colonization than Mars. You’ve got essentially the same deathly inhospitable environment, but you don’t have to climb up and down a sizable gravity well and access to raw materials is likely to be better amongst the asteroids.
We’re very likely to plant a flag on Mars, as we’ve done on the Moon. We may even someday set up some manned outposts not unlike what we’ve got going on the ISS — perhaps even in the lifetime of somebody reading these words.
Your fundamental point is the most important one. Earth is our home, and our only home. Even the worst of the worst we can imagine doing to it will still leave it far less bad than any of the proposed alternatives, so we’d be wise to care for the Earth as if it’s the one-and-only home that it really, truly is.
b&
Being a professional apologist must be a great job. You get to assume facts not in evidence and if that does not complete the day, you just make up whatever might be missing.
That sounds suspiciously like the one about the chemist, the engineer and the economist on the deserted island when a crate of canned food floats in on the tide. No can opener.
The chemist had a plan to use saltwater to corrode the metal. The engineer devises a contraption using a palm tree to gain enough leverage to open the cans with blunt force. And the economist says, “assume a can opener.”
It always amazes me that religious people like Volk can’t see their way to morality without the threat of religion. To me, that speaks ill either of his own moral compass or his true opinion of others.
I have always been puzzled by the instrumentalist claim for religion. We should embrace religion because it’s useful? Not because it’s true? As far as I can see, the necessity of religion rests solely on the question of whether it is true or not. When I hear people say that religion is good because there is some positive effect, it first makes me wonder whether they actually believe in god. Since I think most do, then I get the feeling they are trying to con me…like there’s some catch that they don’t want me to know about until I’m committed, like a time-share. In this case arguing the truth of religion would beg the question, Which one? This would undercut the idea that religion is good, pick any one.
It also ignores or denies the possibility of an alternative that is both useful and true*.
*Please note, not True.
I think very highly of the Golden Rule, but versions of it exist in Ancient China in both Confucianism and Taoism, and in ancient Greek philosophy.
Among many examples cited by Wikipedia, there is
“What you do not want to happen to you, do not do it yourself either. ”
– Sextus the Pythagorean
It seems to me that Christians did not start regarding this as the basic core teaching of Christianity until the 17th century, and then it was Christians of a liberal bent. It does not seem to hold much sway with today’s religious right.
Passages in the Gospels say that the two Great Commandments are “Love the Lord thy God” and “Love thy neighbor as thyself” as we are told after (Matthew 22:35)
“Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law?”
I’m nominally OK with that when the second one is meant sincerely. (And from a humanist point of view, Matthew’s formulation is much preferable to Luke’s formulation “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 10:25))
However, the same Gospel of Matthew ends with the Great Commission “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them”
essentially telling the apostles to covert all the nations to Christianity.
Of the five parts of the United States I have lived in (New Jersey, Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, California) I have been fortunate to live in two communities which combine the best of religion with the best of science and secularism: Lower Merion, PA, and Palo Alto, CA where I live now.
Folks in Palo Alto love science, full acceptance of gays, multiple religions, and equality for women. There are also a LOT of churches in Palo Alto, most (though not all) of which embrace progressive values. (Over the mountains, religion is a bit different in Santa Cruz).
It’s easy in such an environment to develop an insular view of religion as generally benign.
Professor Volf has spent much of his life teaching at seminaries like Yale, where one spends a lot more time hobnobbing with advocates of relatively rarified forms of religion that are light-years away of what religious folks in places like Kentucky believe. (He also comes from a part of the world that has both a strong Christian and strong Muslim population.)
This is a far superior formulation than the Christian one…but, even better would be, “Do not do unto others as they do not wish to be done unto.”
The Christian version, when subordinated to that, is essential to a cooperative society. But when you put the Christian version first, you get Torquemada. He would have sincerely and truthfully told you that every torture he committed was one he would have more than gladly suffered himself if it saved him from the infinite torture of Hell.
b&
Religious beliefs are far too chaotic for mere earthly mortals to understand, so we need an outsider to give us direction.
Fortunately in god we have found such an outsider beyond time and space and able to provide the thread to lead us through the labyrinth.
Every religion claims to be guided by God — as does every believer. So I don’t see how your “just follow God” guideline could possibly get us out of the problem of competing religious beliefs.
sub
I got three words into the title – as far as “Sophisticated Theologian” – and thought ‘it’s crap. Skip it.’
Which is to say I’m certain – with the same degree of conviction as I have that my car is parked outside – that we will have seen all Mr Sophisticated Theologian’s arguments already.
There is, of course, a chance my car has been stolen, which is about the same probability that Mr S.T. has come up with a new argument.
I will now read it and see if my guess was correct.
cr
Read it. Nothing very surprising.
But those maps always annoy me, because I think they’re based on superficial and unrepresentative data. Whether a country has a state religion (which may be as wishy-washy as the Church of England) or some forgotten law against blasphemy (as in New Zealand, whose blasphemy law was used once, 80+ years ago from memory) is really no indication as to how religious or secular a country actually is.
Just going from those maps, the most promising places for an ‘out’ atheist to settle would include Texas, Haiti, most of west Africa, China or North Korea.
cr
sub
Volf drops the ball. Here too:
And where does democracy, human rights or the Golden Rule he later refer to come from? It isn’t religion!
“Between 1970 and 2050, the number of Hindus is projected to grow from 0.43 to nearly 1.4 billion, the number of Muslims from 0.55 billion to 2.7 billion and the number of Christians from 1.25 billion to 2.9 billion”
one of the problems with this claim is that the members of each religion are in sects and those sects often are sure that those Christians, Muslims, etc who do not agree with them are not “true” believers. There are not billions of Christians, there are millions, thousands, hundreds of one sect or the other and they are sure that no one but them are TrueChristians.
“At the heart of reformation must lie the conviction that, as the Apostle Peter put it in the first public sermon he preached, that “we must obey God rather than any human authority” (Acts 5:29), asserting that “religion” and “state” are two distinct cultural systems. Such reformation of religions will not stop the blood and tears from flowing, but religions will no longer be implicated in the carnage.”
what exquisite bullshit. Many, if not most, religious glorify in carnage, enshrining it in their holy books. Every theist claims that they are obeying their god, and that they know what this god wants. Volf is just one more apologist who wants to claim that he knows best and must lie to claim his innocence.