Religion: I Don't Know

It’s been a while since I’ve waxed on religion, but I’m ready to expand the monologue.

This past weekend, I went to see Religulous with Dani, Michael, and Brandon. Host Bill Maher is perhaps the most off-putting person you could find on screen; he wouldn’t know charisma or tact if it bit him in the butt. In spite of his unpleasantness, I appreciated the film for what it was: entertainment. Religulous is a funny film, but not a documentary. Since the interviews are chopped up into snippy sound bytes, Maher refuses to make any concessions, and any intelligent discourse is limited to coming from Maher’s perspective rather than his numerous interviewees, I was a bit peeved. Most critics of this film are offended by the content, but I actually agree with Maher for the most part. For me personally, I’m upset that a film on this subject has finally been created but will surely convince no one of a differing opinion.

Maher declares himself an agnostic, repeatedly insisting he does not know because he can’t know, as there is no concrete proof. Maher bemoans that the world holds a proof-less entity to be supreme and chooses to conduct itself primarily by the rules we’ve decided a higher being has established for us, often in defiance of logic and science. Maher believes that there’s a significant portion of the population that merely accepts rather than believes in their religious affiliations, preferring not to ruffle any feathers by challenging the norm. If the results of this were inconsequential, this approach could be fine and dandy, however, our soundless blind faith is leading to large-scale negative consequences, namely breeding intolerance. At the conclusion, he declares a call to action for all the atheists, agnostics, and questioners to come out of the closet if you will and openly challenge the status quo.

I was raised attending a church, but not raised to be particularly religious. The implicit message I received from this approach was, everyone goes to church, so you will too, but ultimately believe what you want. Even though I consider myself agnostic now, I don’t for one second regret this semi-religious upbringing. My particular church provided me with a lot of good times and helped instill many (and what I still believe are) good values in me. In fact, the very transformation from having a theistic mentality to a non-believing perspective has been a worthwhile experience. I feel that that process of questioning, reasoning, and rejecting helped to make me a stronger critical thinker.

In college, I was the agnostic who argued in favor of religion, particularly because of this personal development. I posited that many intelligent people would be stronger for having been through that process and more prepared to take on a theistic world with insider knowledge. Now, I recognize the shortsightedness of this position. As much as I idealized the thought of hundreds of thousands of little Kevins benefiting from their participation in the church then later coming away with a more enlightened, critical outlook, the reality is that things don’t often work out that way. For every individual who questions eir faith, there are several more who wind up following its principles throughout their lifetime.

I believe our world is in trouble. The ideological differences between countries are going to continue to cause riffs and wars. If that doesn’t come to a head soon, the impending competition for limited resources (food, land, fresh water, etc) will expedite the conflicts. It’d be one thing if we still battled with muskets, but now we play with nuclear bombs. As international citizens, we’re going to have to learn to work out our issues. We’re going to have to learn to be rational in our thinking and, dare I say it, even compromise. Religion is a major impediment here. The very act of blind faith is irrational and many religions encourage people to believe that their path is correct and not to concede their godly values. I very much doubt that we’ll be able to reach a point of logic and science that successfully aids in our survival while so many people hold on to something so illogical and unscientific so dearly.

I wholeheartedly agree with the expression “Ignorance is bliss.” It’s way easier to be happy when you don’t know the truth. The problem is that this state is not sustainable. Eventually, enlightenment or reality sets in, often simultaneously. So while we can choose a life of ignorance, it only prevents us from having the opportunity to problem solve. Take the environment, for example. Sure, we can drive our SUVs and create and waste plastic at alarming rates, all the while ignoring the impending consequences. Currently, we can be content with our cush lifestyles, but in time it will catch up and challenge our existence. I feel that this same analogy can be extended to religion. We can busy our minds with an unproven higher being so that we feel more secure and purposeful, but if we use it as an excuse to impede progress and knowledge (like the subject of evolution, for example,) then we are ultimately doing ourselves a disservice.

Actor Julia Sweeney wrote one of the best loss-of-faith stories I’ve ever read. She is candid, relatable, and funny, to boot. Sweeney wanted so desperately to believe in God, but struggled with reconciling the Bible’s teachings with everything else she held to be true. A lengthy excerpt from her work “Letting Go of God” was broadcast on NPR’s This American Life and the whole program can still be streamed for free here. For a direct link to Sweeney’s segment only, check out this post by Independent Democracy. I highly recommend you listening to this piece, as it is absolutely fascinating. If you don’t have 25 free minutes now, I practically insist that you return again later to give it a shot.

My favorite part of her writing is left out of the excerpt, so I’m going to type it up myself to share. The bolding is my own.

And then I thought: “But I can’t. I don’t know if I can not believe in God. I need God. I mean, we have a history.”

But then I thought: “Wait a minute. If you look over my life, every step of maturing for me, every single one, had the same common denominator. It was accepting what was true over what I wished were true. This was the case about men, about my career, about my parents.”

So how can I come up against this biggest question, the ultimate question, “Do I really believe in a personal God,” and then turn away from the evidence? How can I believe just because I want to? How will I have any respect for myself if I do that?

I thought of Pascal’s wager. Pascal argued that it’s better to be there is a God, because if you’re wrong, there’s nothing to lose, but if there is, you win an eternity in heaven. But I can’t force myself to believe, just in case it turns out to be true.

The God I’ve been praying to knows what I think; he doesn’t just make sure I show up for church. How could I possibly pretend to believe? I might convince other people, but surely not God. Plus, if I lead my life according to my own deeply held moral principles, what difference would it make if I believe in God or not? Why would God care if I “believed” in him?

I certainly could not articulate the struggle and ultimate decision any better myself. I find a real beauty in Sweeney’s story, in spite of the sadness. Also, I find a great source of inspiration. And even though I think he’s an asshat, I find some inspiration from Maher, as well. That’s why I’ve decided to accept his challenge. I can’t sit back and leave well enough alone when I now see religion as being an increasingly destructive force rather than, well, “well enough.” Perhaps it’d be one thing if people practiced the loving, peaceful aspects that religions were supposedly founded upon, but things aren’t shaking out that way.

For this reason, I’m going to be more proactive in sharing my agnosticism. While this may make me an outcast with certain friends, I’m finally (I think) ready to test those limits. I’m not going to let anyone be blissfully ignorant on my watch. Maybe I won’t convert a single person, but at least I can force them to take a closer look at why they believe what they believe and what would change if they weren’t to believe such things. If the threat of hell is the only thing keeping you from behaving immorally, then you have some larger problems.

The truth is, I’m not nearly arrogant enough to assume that I am right about anything, but I am confidently confused enough to declare that I firmly don’t know. In that vain, I think that more people need to be open to the possibility of admitting that they, too, “don’t know.” From there, I hope we can take what we do know and use that knowledge to make better decisions. Join the crusade?