Monotheism is once again scaring me.

I'd heard about "The Family" recently, but kauko reminds me about it today.  They're a Christian group that teaches things like "Morality is for the little people" (rules of decency do not apply to those in power), "Jesus plus nothing" (meaning essentially the totalitarianism of Jesus-ites), and "Be more like Hitler" (demanding complete devotion to party and goals over personal life or standards).  Scary, scary stuff.

Then today the headline comes in from Israel about a GLBT youth meeting ambushed by a masked killer, leaving at least 3 of these kids dead.

I repeat a previous statement of mine that monotheism is a great threat to world peace.  I'll try to pay more attention to polytheist news to see if this kind of savagery is apparent there too.  I don't really expect human nature to differ immensely from one group to another.  I do expect, however, that the reinforcements of "one true way" thinking are responsible for removing important barriers to some of the darker motivations in human nature.  After all, nothing is too shocking if (your belief of) God wants it that way.

Coincidentally, today I splurged and spent some money on a pirate fish pastafarian t-shirt.  I'll consider sending some money to the buddhists and the hindus, since I've done my bit to support the atheists for today.

I've tried to keep up with reading LiveJournal during this last week, but I've been lax about writing either new material here or replies to other people. Mental distractions abound. I mentioned earlier that I might post some "iffy" material here, and... well, here's one of the topics now. I think that I have the right words and references to explain it properly. I started writing this piece back in 2004, but maybe now I can finally finish it.

( brevity cut for courtesy... )

Choose the explanation that's appropriate for the need. Getting them confused leads to all kinds of trouble.

Hopefully kauko is still out there reading LiveJournal, since today's post is a followup to his question from two months back. It's taken significant pondering and reading to find a better answer to the question, since so many intertwined ideas/emotions are tangled up in the problem. Curiously, it also relates to bitterlawngnome's (and my own) mingling of passion and intellect.  The argument could probably be shortened, but I need to get ready for work shortly, so here it is.

Why does society allow religions to hold on to their bigotries whereas in any other aspect of our culture they would not be tolerated.

My conclusion is that the necessary methods for enforcing anti-bigotry in religion would be unpleasant for most people to even consider... and that unpleasantry is why religion as a doctrine is allowed to maintain its bigotries. The cost to remove it is considered worse than the ailment itself. Although this matter is generally understood at the level of emotion rather than rationalization. Here follows my attempt to rationalize/uncover that reality/instinct.

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In a letter that I wrote back in September 2001, I was explaining to someone that affection and faith are the same in some of their qualities. Namely that forcing them upon another person is destructive, and that all one can do is offer these gifts to someone honestly while accepting whatever decisions they may make afterward.

Daniel Dennett (in "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon") is far more explicit. He explains that religion is not just like love, but that it is a kind of love. Humans experience it that way because of a memetic "Good Trick" in coopting our capacity for one development and using it for a different development. Humans defend their love (of person or of faith) with equal fanaticism, and both render humans equally blind to intelligent inquiry. Indeed, we take pride in our love that appears without rational explanation of its benefits. We lavish our love (of person or of faith) with beautiful gifts such as incense, masterpieces of art, magnificent architecture, songs of love, passionate words of poetry, and elegant ceremony. They inspire the same acts of selfless devotion and sacrifice.  The experience of beauty and of belonging is the same.

Aside:  I wrote in 1996 that science is another aspect of the same situation. Religion and science are equivalent experiences (or have been, at least, in my life), and I think that love of individual can join them in trinity. And I do mean passionate love, not (mere) brotherly love. Here is a clue to bitterlawngnome's point that eros molds so readily with intellect. At least, it does for some people... which leads back to kauko's question. Given my premise that religion is a kind of love, there are some curious consequences for how we treat it.

Religious doctrine is as convoluted as physics. I assume that some of these matters are beyond the ken of some people. We have Doctors (of physical disciplines) for the same reason that we have Rabbis/Priests/Imams (of religious disciplines)... so that people better equipped to consider these ideas may do so and then tell their conclusions to the rest of us.  We concede that we are too ignorant or stupid to understand them fully ourselves.  Some faith (just as some love) can be bad for our well being. Yet we are forbidden by social rule from interfering. If it were only a matter of explaining a rational argument to convince someone of their foolishness, then I expect that human history would read very differently than it does now. The truth is that some arguments are too complex for some people to understand. "All men are created equal"? Not so. Exposing the lie, though, would exact a terrible cost since democracy is based upon the concept of this mythical equality.

Some people will not understand the intricacies of the social argument about the harm (whatever situation you want to examine) done by their religious doctrine. Assuming you are unable to convince them logically, then how do you change their behavior anyway? Coerce/legislate by the authority of your superior argument? (We're smarter than you, so our opinion and vote counts more than yours.) I myself am still torn between the idea of meritocracy (technocracy) and democracy. I see costs and benefits to each method. I think it would be enormously satisfying to hold an IQ test as entrance barrier to the voting booth... until I someday failed the test myself. I think kauko's question exposes another consequence of each system.

We accept that the selfish pursuit of happiness (love, religion, theory, etc) must continue without interference. If some people want to believe in their own (racial, ethnic, religious, intellectual) superiority, then they are allowed to do so. Their organizations will succeed or fail as individuals support or abandon them. All the individuals of a society must change first, so that the institutions may change afterward. Top-down coercion is not allowed because the cost to liberty would be too high. We console ourselves with the hope that we will all educate ourselves during our stumbling.

My first answer to the question focused on this consolation. If these ignorant fools are at least considering the right questions, then perhaps they will eventually learn the same truth that I plainly see if they just spend more time at their foolishness. Why they fail to reach the same conclusions in the first place is a different question. My second answer to the question of why we allow them to continue (in religion) with their bigotries is because the assumption of authority over someone else's most personal of endeavors (love... of person or of religion) would be bad for all of us.

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Why does society allow religions to hold on to their bigotries whereas in any other aspect of our culture they would not be tolerated.

Because "authoritative" interference in matters of love carries abhorrent consequences. It seems less dangerous to merely continue "hoping for the best" that they will learn from their mistakes, in spite of the obvious evidence that they haven't yet learned from them.

I notice that this original art of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is quite similar to this gem art of Abraxas.



Might Pastafarianism have a much older lineage than we thought?  Maybe those Gnosh-tics were on to something.

I'm not Christian myself, but I do tend to encounter them. The obvious counterpoint is a dinosaur bone, even complete skeletons. My life is seldom so obvious though. Some days, I keep a slab of coprolite in my pocket. If I lick it to make it wet, it shows very pretty shades of green and brown. (Coprolite is fossilized dinosaur "remains". See samples of the full thing and also a cross section like I have.)

1) Binomial Nomenclature is Holy work

Most Christians think that the first task that God set to Adam was to go out and multiply (Gen 1:28). They're wrong. Before God created Eve, He was bringing animals to Adam to give them a name (Gen 2:19-20). Apparently God wanted His creations to be noticed and identified. Killing them off in this current great extinction should amount to some kind of blasphemy, preventing humans from fulfilling the "first task" given them by their creator. Scientists are identifying new species all the time, though not at a fast enough pace to catch them all before extinction. Christians shouldn't be at odds with the evolutionary tree and the naming scheme that ties these different lives together. Instead, they should regard binomial nomenclature (the formal system for naming of species) as Holy work that fulfills an early duty.  Oh, and "Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees." (Rev 7:3)  Creation deserves a little respect, not disdain, for its temporary nature.

2) God never stopped Creating

Have you ever watched a video where you saw an initial explosion and then the ring of destruction (fire, smoke, dust, or cloud) that expands from the center as the force moves outward? Yeah, that's what this photo is like. This Hubble Telescope image was taken after some new kind of stellar explosion (not a regular nova) from a star 20,000 light years away in the constellation of the Unicorn. The initial burst of light first reached us in January 2002, and this photo was taken 11 months later. That's nearly a year that the sudden burst of light was allowed to expand in a shell, the "wave of light" a million times brighter than normal. As that brilliance contines to expand in a sphere from the original star, we get to see the reflections (or visual light "echo") of whatever was in the path of the light at that moment. Like a strobe light catching secrets in the dark, we see the gas and debris that was always there but hidden from sight. We get to see the shape of the wispy tendrils that weave the tapestry of our galaxy (and even the universe). And, appropriately enough, we get to see bright blue stars in the foreground, classic color of new young stars.

New stuff happens. All the time. The universe didn't achieve its final shape on any given day in the past (6000 years ago or more). After the light passes, then the physical shockwave will expand from that star. Such compressions are thought to eventually give rise to new star formation. Creation did not end at the seventh day. It continues even today.

3) End Times are NOT nigh

When the universe holds such sights waiting to be seen, I do not believe in any deity that pretends compassion while simultaneously threatening to keep us from finding these wonders in the universe. We should be "out there" someday living stories that even the science fiction writers of today can't imagine. The "End Times" didn't come in the years after Jesus. Or the centuries. Or, now, the millenia. I will not live in doom when I know (just look up, into the night sky! *points upward*) that discoveries are waiting for us.

I live in a universe where creation never ended, where everything changes, and where animal shit outlasts the animal and later (equally temporary) species dig it up from the dirt to turn it into jewelry. Why would anyone want to live somewhere else?

"Did you know that in a world so full of wonders, they have actually invented boredom? Quite astonishing." - Death, regarding humans and their creativity, in the movie "Hogfather"

Reuters has an article describing the defection of two journalists who report on matters of religion.

"Two leading religion journalists — one in Britain, one in the United States — have quit the beat in recent months, saying they had acquired such a close look at such scandalous behaviour by Christians that they lost their faith and had to leave."

BBC News talks about how even bible-thumping fundamentalists are getting tired of the "same ol', same ol'". You probably haven't heard of Rev. Terry Fox, but he's similar to Rev. Phelps of "God Hates Fags" fame.  (edit: sfbootdog  found this scary video from them.) Says Rev. Fox, "I am proud to be called the religious right," he blasts. "I am religious and I am right!" The BBC article goes on to say:

"But the Rev Fox's cross is all that is left of his ministry at the old place. He tells me it was time to move on but most locals think he was thrown out for being too dogmatic, too extreme, even in Wichita."

I hope these changes mean that people are finally realizing how life is much too short and precious to spend so much of it in hatred and deceit. It seems to me that monotheists of whatever variety might be better off concentrating their attention on creative endeavors, then leaving the destructive ones to their infallible deity who's probably better qualified than mere humans at figuring out when it's appropriate.  I've noticed the tendency of fundamentalists to grow annoyed at their deity's slow distribution of wrathful vengeance, and to start taking matters into their own hands instead to hurry matters along.  Do you suppose we'll ever outgrow this impatience?


May you be touched by his noodly appendage.