Greekology and the regular America god
[DELANEY, 7, takes Bulfinch’s Mythology down from my office shelf and starts leafing through.]
DELANEY: Dad?
DAD: Mm.
DELANEY: Are there any people in Greek who still believe Greekology?
DAD: Not any more. Well…actually there are a few. But mostly not.
DELANEY: I don’t get how anybody can still believe it. You said people climbed up to the top of Mount Olympics and didn’t see any gods.
DAD: Well…if you believed in something like that, and somebody hiked to the top and said your gods weren’t there, what would you say?
DELANEY: I’d say they were hiding. [Chuckles.] Or invisible.
DAD: HA! Perfect.
[She continues rummaging the shelves.]
DELANEY: Ooo, this one’s nice.
DAD: Yeah, I like that one. It’s called the Book of Common Prayer.
DELANEY: Who uses that?
DAD: The Church of England.
DELANEY: What!? I thought England believed the same god as the regular America god.
DAD: Yeah, it’s…well, there are different churches that believe in the same god but in different ways. They just do little things different.
DELANEY: Like what?
DAD: You remember the thing with the wine and bread? Some churches think the wine actually turns into the blood of Jesus, and the bread…
DELANEY: …is his body, yeah. I thought they ALL believed that.
DAD: Well, some of them believe it’s just supposed to make us think about his body and blood. But some think it really, exactly turns into his blood and body when you eat it.
[Long pause.]
DELANEY: Okay, I have a question. [Pause.] Where do people get these ideas? How do they…how do they think of stuff like that?
DAD: Different ways. This one they actually got from the Greeks. They used to think the spirit of the gods lived inside bulls and goats, so they’d take the animals up on top of a hill, slit their throats and drink their blood. They said they were taking the god into their bodies. So when the Christians…
DELANEY: Oh. My. God.
DAD: What?
DELANEY: That is just COMPLETELY disgusting.
DAD: But…you didn’t seem freaked out about drinking Jesus’s blood…
DELANEY: Well that’s people blood. I’m already full of people blood. I could drink a little more.
Laughing matters 7: Mr. Deity
I am always the last to discover cool and interesting things. Hat tip to Facebook friend Beverly Emond for helping me deduct one more dollar from my Shameful Ignorance account by introducing me to Mr. Deity.
Mr. Deity is a brilliant and hilarious series of satirical shorts on YouTube that proves once again that comedy beats the keeeey-rap out of every other means of enlightenment.
We think of comedy as entertainment, which is about like saying sex is exercise. Sure, comedy’s fun, but it also reveals the truth more head-top-removingly than any argument could — especially when the purveyor has his head on straight. In the case of satire, that means understanding and, if you can manage it, empathizing with your targets. Brian Keith Dalton, the creator and star of Mr. Deity, does both, and we get the benefit.
Wanna grapple with the Problem of Evil? You can read volumes of treatises and apologia on theodicy and the Epicurean paradox. Or you can watch this:
You can lunch with Benedict XVI for a week to explore substitutionary atonement — the idea that one person can atone for the sins of another — and the dual nature of Christ. Or you can watch this:
And you can ponder and argue how and whether God answers prayers, and the implications of the conclusions you reach. Or you can watch Bruce Almighty, a smart and worthwhile comedy. Or watch this:
I know why these things soar the way they do here. Dalton is uncovering inconsistencies and problems and nonsense, but he is not sneering. He gets religious belief, empathizes with it, respects the impulse, even though he doesn’t share the conclusions. That’s essential to the comedy. My own religious satire falls flattest when I am least understanding of my targets and soars highest (imho) when I get where they’re coming from — because the latter is more likely to be rooted in the truth.
This from Mr. Deity’s FAQ:
I am a formerly religious person (non-bitter), and as such, have great sympathies for the beliefs and feelings of religious people. I love the fact that they are concerned with the big issues like Good and Evil, Existence, Creation, etc… I don’t always agree with the answers they provide to these questions, but I deeply respect their concern. Our goal here is not to mock religion, but to use it as a foundation for the humor. I’m thrilled that so many religious people have written to tell me that they love the episodes. In future episodes, I intend to turn the tables a bit and poke fun at what I call the “angry atheists” (of whom I am not fond). We’ll see if they take it so well.
As for his implied question….
We’ll see if the [angry atheists] take it so well [as religious folks have]
…with a few notable exceptions, I’m not even one tiny bit optimistic.
Mr. Deity’s YouTube Channel
MrDeity.com
Read the complete Laughing Matters series
Humanism 2009 (4 of 4)
Part 4 of an address to Edmonds UU Church in Edmonds, WA, April 19, 2009.
[Back to Part 1.]
[Back to Part 2.]
[Back to Part 3.]
A recent post I saw on a humanist discussion board framed the issue very well. “Religious communities,” it said, “are often filled with social events, music, poetry, inspiration, and life advice. It can be very difficult for some people to give all of this up for a few science books, Internet forums, and an arsenal of ammunition to use against the religious. Where is the poetry? Where is the inspiration? Although many of us have already found meaning without religion, we should probably try to help those who haven’t.”
This is the sound of Harry reaching out to Sally.
Fortunately, many humanist groups across the country are getting more comfortable with exactly these things. They are expanding their topics, improving the emotional and symbolic content of their meetings, and turning to ever-greater involvement in good works — an area in which UUs have always taken the lead.
But in the process of leading this transformation of humanism, I have seen many UU fellowships so eager to serve Sally that they ignore or even disparage Harry. It’s a delicate and difficult balancing act, but by naming it here today, I hope improve the chances of healing this fault line. If it is going to be healed, I’m convinced it will happen here in the UU denomination, because this is where Harry and Sally meet.
I have ever-greater hope for the rest of the humanist movement as well. They too are figuring out how to do community well, including a greater focus on good works. Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry began a marvelous “revolving charities” campaign, designating one charity each quarter as a spotlight beneficiary. In less than a year, thousands of dollars have gone toward orphan relief, domestic violence support services, medical research, and a residential facility for troubled youth. A few other groups are doing likewise. And from Portland to Albuquerque to Raleigh, humanist parenting groups and ethical education programs for kids are springing up, adding a family focus, more gender equity, and young blood.
I’d like to see this continue and expand. I’d like to see soup kitchen, food pantry, and Habitat volunteering added to the omnipresent freeway cleanup programs. The Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia sponsors an annual Tree of Knowledge during the holidays. I’d like to see a Tree of Compassion right next to it.
When it comes to forming genuine community, humanists have a very mixed record. We fret and fuss over the urgent need for more rationality in the world, ignoring more basic human needs like unconditional acceptance. Most people do not go to church for theology—they go for acceptance. They go to be surrounded by people who smile at them and are nice to them, who ask how their kids are and whether that back injury is still hurting. Until we recognize why people gather together—and that it isn’t “to be a force for rationality”—humanist groups of all kinds will continue to lag behind theistic churches in offering community.
It begins with simple things. I urge humanist groups to designate a greeter for every meeting—someone to grab and shake the hand of every person who walks in the door, new or returning. Select topics that challenge the convictions and humanity of the group instead of always preaching to the choir. Or screw the topic and just get together for the sake of getting together.
I tell them to have a CD playing as people arrive. And not Die Gedanken sind frei.1 Something unrelated to freethought. Read a poem. Take a moment to remember people who are ill or have died. Collect money for the homeless. If you want families to come and stay, offer childcare or forget about it.
These are things UUs have mastered. Now I want to see it spread to the rest of the freethought world. If we make our secular humanist groups less about secularism and more about humanism, more humans will come. And as long as we continue to serve their humanity, they will stay—and they will bring their kids. At that point, you’ve got yourself a community.
“The good life,” said Bertrand Russell, “is inspired by love and guided by knowledge.” Thanks in large part to Harry, humanism has knowledge tackled. In the interest of Sally, and the millions of humanists like her, it’s time to match our intellectual efforts with greater emphasis on compassion, emotion, humanity, and love. And a big part of this is recognizing those things—ritual, language, symbolism, community-building, and more—that religion actually does really well, and giving ourselves permission to adopt and redefine what works, even as we set aside what does not.
_______________________
1But click this link for a video of Die Gedanken that mixes Harry and Sally quite nicely.
Illustration from The Usual Error Project under Creative Commons license.
Humanism 2009 (3 of 4)
Part 3 of an address to Edmonds UU Church in Edmonds, WA, April 19, 2009. This part will bore regular blog readers, since it’s stolen from an earlier post, which was in turn swiped from an article I wrote for Secular Nation. So y’all can play at the sand table while the rest of the class catches up.
[Back to Part 1.]
[Back to Part 2.]
Okay, let me spin a scenario here. Any resemblance of the characters in this scenario to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely intentional.
A young woman named Sally sees a notice in the paper about a local humanist organization. She has always considered herself a religious humanist, completely nontheistic but longing for human community that doesn’t require her to park her convictions at the door. One Sunday morning she decides to skip her mainstream church service and check it out.
Sally walks in the door of the meeting with a nervous smile. A few men are setting things up. No one acknowledges her. Ten minutes after milling about awkwardly, reading scattered pamphlets and counting ceiling tiles, she crosses paths with one of the men. “Visitor?” he asks. “Yes, I am, hello!” she replies. “Hello, good to meet you,” he says. “Help yourself to coffee and nametags over there.” And off he goes to set up the chairs.
Sally has just met Harry.
Secular humanists come in every color, gender, age and size, but after many years speaking and belonging to humanist groups, and at the serious risk of stereotyping, I’d say there is a prototypical secular humanist, and Harry is it. If the police were profiling secular humanists, the profile might read something like this:
Scientifically-oriented, well-read white male, late 60s/early 70s
Grey-to-white hair and beard
Driving mid-sized vehicle with multiple incendiary bumperstickers
Officers cautioned to expect an argument
Suspect may be armed with syllogisms
Aside from the car, they’re essentially looking for Socrates.
Harry is the backbone of organized secular humanism, and most secular humanists fit most of that profile. Harry was there when Madeleine Murray O’Hair challenged prayer in schools, and he’s still here, staffing the tables, giving the talks, bringing the cookies, and just showing up, even when the rest of us have turned into the humanist equivalents of Christmas and Easter Christians.
I love Harry. Without the dedication and courage of Harry and those like him, humanism and the freethought movement would never have made it this far.
But what do we need to do to move further? For one thing, we need to also serve the needs of people who are quite different from Harry.
Harry was a freethought pioneer because he did not have the same needs as most other people. He was able to leave the church behind because he was exceptional in this way. I’m with him on this. When people talk to me about the need for community or wax poetic about “something larger than myself” or seeking the “spiritual side” of life, frankly my eyes glaze over a bit. The truth is that I don’t feel these needs in quite the way I hear others express them. That puts me outside the norm — something I need to recognize.
As a result of our relative lack of the mammalian desire to snuggle, I and all the rest of those with Harry personalities get together and talk quite happily about science and truth and reason. It’s not me I’m worried about—it’s Sally, who has been standing awkwardly by the coffee urn for ten paragraphs now.
Desperate for something to do, she ambles over to a table of books for sale. Every book without exception is about science, philosophy, critical thinking, or the debunking of religion or the paranormal. She meekly drifts to a group in conversation. Some religious dogma or other is being debunked with a flurry of critical argument and a smug, chuckling sneer.
Rather than being welcomed into an accepting community, she has the distinct feeling she’d better watch what she says. Most of all, she is painfully aware that the sneer is directed at who she was the previous week.
The meeting begins to coalesce. After a few announcements, the speaker is introduced. And what will our new visitor hear for the next 45 minutes? Here’s a quick sampling of recent meeting topics for humanist groups around the country:
Jesus of Nazareth—Historical, Mythical, or Some of Each?
Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
Revelation Trumped by the Constitution
The Enlightenment and the Self
Who Wrote the Gospels?
Church/State—Strict Separation or Accommodation?
Debate: “To Believe or Not to Believe”
I’m interested in every one of these topics. Of course I am—I’m Harry. But Sally, not so much. If she comes again and has the same experience—an indifferent reception, an atmosphere of critical disdain, and a debunking lecture—the third time will rarely be a charm.
I’ve heard it said that the comparison isn’t fair. Humanist groups don’t want to be churches. I’m comparing apples and oranges. But if our prospective members seem to be allergic to oranges, might it not be wise to take a closer look at them apples? Might it not be wise to think about what it is that people are really looking for, and to even look to traditional religion as potential inspiration?
A recent post I saw on a humanist discussion board summed this up very well. “Religious communities,” it said, “are often filled with social events, music, poetry, inspiration, and life advice. It can be very difficult for some people to give all of this up for a few science books, Internet forums, and an arsenal of ammunition to use against the religious. Where is the poetry? Where is the inspiration? Although many of us have already found meaning without religion, we should probably try to help those who haven’t.”
This is the sound of Harry reaching out to Sally.
Humanism 2009 (2 of 4)
Part 2 of an address to Edmonds UU Church in Edmonds, WA, April 19, 2009.
As I’ve grown in my secular humanism, I’ve begun to value the second word more strongly than the first. And nothing illustrates the reason more vividly than the picture of all those hands racing skyward as Georgia kindergarteners enthusiastically embraced the idea of humanism—if only until dinnertime.
When they hear the definition, most people identify with it on some level. Think of the power in that.
The fault line down the middle of humanism runs right through the UU denomination. And that’s no surprise. When asked to choose one theological label in the Casebolt survey several years back, 46 percent of UUs chose “humanist.” It was by far the largest category of self-definition in this denomination. When given the option of identifying more than one label in the FACT survey of 2001, fully 91 percent of UUs chose “humanist” as one of their identities.
That’s a wonderful shared foundation on which to build.
Yet the fault line persists because we can’t seem to find our way past the first words— “secular” or “religious”— and their implications.
The irony here is that UUs are famously and proudly tolerant of diversity. You embrace and celebrate differences in race and ethnicity. You put other denominations to shame with your Welcoming Congregation Program for the GLBT community. Yet when it comes to being in community with other humanists, the fault line between the words “secular” and “religious” seems to yawn into an abyss.
It’s not just an issue for UUs. I recently spoke at one of the oldest Ethical Societies in the country and learned that two years ago they reached a level of such obsessive and destructive conflict over this issue that they called in a mediation team from the Alban Institute. On a scale of 1 to 5, their conflict was assessed at Level Five: “Intractable—no reconciliation possible.” One third of the Society walked away to form a new group. “We splintered like Protestants,” one person said. And the bitterness over the issue is still tangible.
Today I consider them one of the most successful humanist communities in the United States.
I know why secular humanists often have trouble accepting the idea of religious humanism, even when nontheistic, with its greater interest in ritual, in mystery, and in the notion of transcendence. I know why secular humanists flinch at the use of words like “holy,” “sacred,” “blessed,” “spiritual,” and “religion,” even when the user explains that they are divorced from their theistic origins — because I flinch too.
When I hear religious humanists ask why many secular humanists, especially the older generation, are so adamant in their renunciation of everything associated with religion, I hear echoes of other movements. I hear a young generation of African Americans chiding their parents and grandparents, asking “Why is everything about race with you?” I hear young women, whose mothers and grandmothers fought against an entrenched patriarchy for rights they now take for granted, who roll their eyes and ask, “Why is everything about gender with you?”
Many of us, especially those who grew up in earlier decades, have been wounded by traditional religion. I have met countless humanists who carry memories of betrayal, humiliation, terror, and psychological or physical abuse inflicted on them or their loved ones in the name of religion—often in childhood, when we are most vulnerable.
For these people, these most adamant secular humanists, words and rituals formerly associated with theistic religion carry genuinely painful associations. When other humanists who for whatever reason have been spared that wounding, or who bounced back more readily, insist that the seculars simply “get over” their aversion, that they simply recognize that religion can be redefined — it displays a very real lack of empathy.
But this knife cuts both ways, of course. When secular humanists accuse religious humanists of being “soft in the head,” or “irrational,” or “hooked on fuzzy-wuzzy mumbo-jumbo”—those are all exact quotes—they fail to recognize that God’s empty throne does not negate the many human needs that religion has traditionally served. Thinking hard about what those needs are is among the key challenges for humanism today.
[N.B. The following section is especially relevant to the Charles Blow column “Defecting to Faith.”]
One persistent delusion I hear from secular humanists is that people go to church for God. If we could just break through their belief in God, they say, they’ll walk away from church. It isn’t true, and we need to grasp this, once and for all, if humanist communities of all kinds are to bring people in the door and keep them there. If we don’t have what they are looking for, they will walk right out again.
I mentioned this disconnect to a gentleman in a freethought meeting last year and he scoffed. “Sorry,” he said. “If eternal life and pretty fables are what they need, we’re fresh out.” He didn’t seem inclined to question his assumption that that is what people need—that that is why people go to church. In fact, I’m convinced the revolving door on humanist communities of all kinds isn’t about the absence of God but the absence of something much more human and much more humanistic.
In a recent Gallup poll, only 27 percent of churchgoing respondents mentioned God or worship when giving their primary reason for attending church. They go to be a part of a loving community, for a sense of belonging, to be inspired and supported, to be involved in social justice and good works. One friend told me she goes so she can be surrounded by friendly people once a week. Simple as that. Yet the secular humanists who founded and who continue to run many freethought groups around the country continue to harp and harp on theology and epistemology, then wonder why few come and even fewer stay.
BONUS: Look, you’re already at the computer. Take two more minutes and read this fantastic (and brief) post at the Lucky Atheist. THIS is exactly what I mean by transcendence of the everyday!
Humanism 2009 (1 of 4)
The column by Charles Blow in which I’m quoted is in today’s NYT. Among the many points is one of my favorites: “The nonreligious could learn a few things from religion.”
He’s right, you know.
He starts the column by quoting nonreligious friends who say “Most people are religious because they’re raised to be. They’re indoctrinated by their parents.” Blow seems to reject this idea in favor of the spiritual need argument, and supports that with the poor “retention rate” of the nonreligious.
But I think that’s only half the picture. It also makes sense that the worldview that does the least indoctrinating would end up with children who choose many different paths. I think that’s what’s up with kids raised outside of religion. And on the other side of the coin, the high “retention rate” for religious denominations could just as reasonably be interpreted as evidence of a high level of indoctrination.
Anyway.
One of the concerns I hear most often from nonreligious parents is “How can I keep from indoctrinating them to MY opinions?” I love hearing that. Give them a foundation of basic values — like humility, empathy, courage, honesty, openness, generosity, and gratitude — then let them decide what it adds up to. That’s freethought parenting.
Some of our kids will remain nonreligious, and others will choose religion, including some perfectly benign expressions. Still others may drift into religion and out again. As a parent, I’ll respond to my kids’ chosen identities on the same grounds as everything else: Are you happy, and are you making the world a better place?
At any rate, since Charles has thrown the ball in the air, it’s time as promised to post the talk I gave at Edmonds UU near Seattle last month, since the topic is the same. It’ll be in four parts. You’ll hear echoes from several other posts, since I use the blog as a farm team for my ideas. As always, thanks for listening.
Humanism 2009
by Dale McGowan
First delivered at Edmonds Unitarian Universalist Church, April 19, 2009
Despite the rather grand title of my talk, I don’t expect to offer any epic overviews today. I’d like instead to focus on one aspect of humanism today—the wonderful fault line currently running down the middle of the humanist community.
I call it wonderful because I think this fault line is a symptom of our growth and success as a worldview. Last year’s American Religious Identification Survey didn’t have a category for humanists, but fully one in five respondents claimed no religious identity. Most of them can be safely assumed to share the humanist or even secular humanist worldview. And when, within 20 minutes of assuming office, the President of the United States chose to include “nonbelievers” in a list of those to whom this country belongs—well, despite those who quibble with his word choice, it’s a pretty significant indication that nontheistic Americans, by whatever label, are gaining a greater place at the table.
But with that success come some challenges. Unity was less difficult before. When a group is small, huddled on the margins and threatened with extinction, there’s a tendency to worry less about what divides you than what unites you.
I remember a high school social studies teacher of mine describing the usual course of revolutions in these terms. While the revolutionaries are storming the castle, they tend to set their differences aside and unite against the common enemy. But if they are successful at gaining power, they immediately fragment into at least two factions, with the more radical accusing the other of “selling out” the ideals of the revolution.
It’s hard to find a revolution anywhere that hasn’t followed this pattern.
Though humanism is far from breaching the castle wall of our culture, I do think the fault line can be seen as a sign that we’re not quite so huddled on the margins anymore — that we’re beginning to reach a level of viability and maturity unthinkable just a generation ago.
Before I support that claim or elaborate on the fault line, we’ll need to define humanism.
I had to do this on the spot last year when my daughter Delaney, who was then six, read the word “humanist” on the spine of a book on my shelf and asked what it meant. You’d think that, given my current work, I’d have been ready for this, but parenting is all about being overprepared for things that never happen and surprised by things that do. The big surprise to me in that moment is that I not only answered her, but gave her what I continue to think was a really good answer.
“A humanist,” I said, “is somebody who thinks that people should all take care of each other, and whether there is a god or there isn’t, we should spend our time making this life and this world better.”
She immediately embraced the term herself and announced to her kindergarten class the next day that she is a humanist. When her teacher asked her what that meant, she gave the definition that I had given her—and several of her classmates in that Georgia school enthusiastically declared that they too are humanists.
Oh what I wouldn’t have given for a God’s-eye view of some family dinnertables that night.
Now I’m a humanist of a particular kind. I am a secular humanist. I believe that there is no supernatural being watching over us, and that’s all the more reason for us to care for each other and this world. No one else seems to be available for the job.
Many others call themselves religious humanists, including many UUs. Some of these use the word “religion” in the traditional way, which Webster’s defines as “belief in a divine or superhuman power to be obeyed and worshipped as the creator and ruler of the universe.” Others claim and redefine the word “religion” in ways that transcend theistic belief, building instead on shared values, community, and the desire to be and do good.
When I first discovered the label for what I had essentially always been – secular humanist – I considered the first word to be the more important. I had renounced not just theism but all of the institutional accretions that have built up around theism these many centuries, doing untold harm to the very world and people I care so much about.
As I’ve grown in my secular humanism, I’ve begun to value the second word more strongly than the first. And nothing illustrates the reason more vividly than the picture of all those hands racing skyward as Georgia kindergarteners enthusiastically embraced the idea of humanism—if only until dinnertime.