Religion Without A God

“With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” – Steven Weinberg, Nobel Winner for Physics

I basically agree with him, but only because I am looking at an expanded definition of religion.

In essence, Weinberg is saying that morals do not require the overtones of religion, but that with religion the becomes of the possibility of good men acting in the name of evil.

The problem with dealing with people is that you learn over time that “religion” doesn’t necessarily involve the supernatural. It can involve any situation that involves a person who has found a cause for which he is willing to give his life, or at least make a major sacrifice for it. This cause does not need to involve the supernatural; it can be anything from saving puppies to saving the world. Throw in patriotic fervor, and odds are pretty good that whole crowds of people will go along with it.

And we all know that whole crowds of people going in the same direction can lead to bad things.

At this point, you effectively have a religion. You have people willing to die for a cause, are willing to do anything that their leadership tells them to without question, and are motivated to succeed. In short, you have some very scary mojo going on. You have a crowd of people that need to succeed at whatever the goal is. And the scariest thing is that you don’t need a god. You just need someone with a charisma at the heart of a bad situation. And there have been plenty of those to go around.

Consider Russia in the 1910s. The nobility was out of control, the peasants were being treated poorly, and there was a hotbed of political unrest. Rather than look at the peasant situation and do something about it they went to war, hoping that the peasants would focus on that rather than the overall situation. By the 1920s, the nobles were dead, fleeing, or shipped off to labor camps, along with everyone that represented a threat or disagreed with the Bolshevik regime. Within a decade so many millions had died that we only have estimates of those killed. This would be done concurrently with the Chinese Revolution. And in the 1930s, it would be repeated yet again in Germany, ravaged more by the Versailles Treaty than any war.

This also applied to ages past, such as the Anarchist Revolt in the 1870s, when a group of people decided to do something about the industries sweeping across America. Going further back is the French Revolution, which although reasonably just was one of the bloodiest revolutions ever. In each case there was a large crowd of people that decided that they had had enough and needed to do something about it, and then a fire took over, a passion that their cause was just and that any means to make it succeed was acceptable.

In short, social justice became a god, and that god demanded blood sacrifice on the scale of the Aztecs. But no god was involved, and yet religious fervor was nonetheless involved. So I don’t think you need a god to have a religion, and that sometimes those religions are scarier than those with ever could be.

Food and The Bible

Let’s take a quick look at biblical diet issues. First off, one of the most common arguments against Christianity is that it doesn’t follow its own rules, and one of those examples is the set of rules put down regarding the diet of those that follow God. The basic problem is that it appears that the basic rules were rescinded:

Mark 7:18 And  [Jesus] said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, 19 since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?”  Thus he declared all foods clean.

Because of this and other verses in the New Testament, Christians have argued that they do not operate under the same limits as those in Judaism when it comes to which foods they can and cannot eat. This means that Christians can eat a wider variety of foods than Orthodox Jews can enjoy, and that deals with the whole why Christians can eat foods that were previous forbidden, and why the argument is a bit spurious. It does explain why Christians can have crab cake feats as fund raisers, as well as why pork is an acceptable food for them.

Past that, however, there were some good reasons for the biblical prohibitions. The seas surrounding Ancient Israel, for example, had to deal with the occasional red tide, where the sea would be turned red due to the presence of a harmful algae bloom. This bloom would not only make the oceans dangerous, but would also make the animals that lived in it dangerous to eat as well. These diseases would virtually soak into the bottom-feeders, such as crabs and mollusks, making them dangerous for humans to eat. Thus a proscription against shellfish makes sense, especially as they were usually eaten raw.

Of course, not eating scavengers in the first place is a pretty good idea. Scavengers have a number of systems to deal with the diseases they may pick up, but we do not. Also, anything that the animal they deal with had eaten will show up in the system of the scavenger, but in concentrated form as they likely ate more than one animal with the same problem, such as contaminants. These would of course get passed onto the person who ate them. Not a pleasant thought, right?

Pork is a pretty good one. On one hand pork needs to be cooked thoroughly in order to deal with any diseases, such as trichinosis. Another issue is from an ecological standpoint: Pigs and humans share the same ecological niche. When it comes to a desert-dwelling people, an animal that requires the same foods as humans to grow is an extravagance, and therefore something that should probably not be part of the diet.

Even keeping meat and cheese separate makes a certain degree of sense, especially given what we know about cross-contamination now. Cheese is dependent on the molds inside it for a number of its advantages, but outside of its medium they can cause disease. Meat easily absorbs any disease in the area, as well as rotting quickly in the right environment. As such, it would have made an ideal environment for diseases to quickly grow to virulent numbers. Keep in mind that cooking areas were not kept to today’s standards, it would have been easy for a mold to get into the meat and become a dangerous disease if they were not kept separate.

This should cover most of the more interesting food mysteries of the Bible. Let’s just hope it leads to greater understanding between faiths…

Semantics

When it comes to discussing philosophical issues, one of the problems is the problem of semantics. Something that all religious must deal with at some point is that atheists fail to realize that sometimes the religious aren’t as stupid as they think, and that we can follow an argument. More to the point, this is despite the atheist’s ad hominem attacks and spurious attacks. These arguments usually fall into three types: faulty logic, not realizing what “living word” means, and why “apologist” is an irritating term.

The term “apologist” has an interesting etymology. Originally, the idea was that you would have a “kategoria” and an “apologia”; the Roman equivalent of our modern-day prosecutor and defender. Over time, because the kategoria was dropped, but somehow the apologia was used so much by the Christians, that anyone defending their faith was called an “apologist”. Over much more time, around the time when The Enlightenment was in full force, the term acquired a negative connotation, as atheists and others decided that the person was defending himself out of some sort of feeblemindedness due to their disdain for the religious. Recognizing that disdain, and that it is essentially an insult, the religious have thus started recognizing the lack of respect inherent to the term. Ergo, it’s essentially a red flag that the atheist is not interested in respecting the religious person.

“Living word” means a number of different things to different people. The problem is that even some religious people have issues with the concept, especially when it involves those that The Bible literally. However, for those of us that study it, the means that we need to look at The Bible from two perspectives: historical and modern-day. We need to put a foot down into two very different eras; we need to find out the historical background of The Bible in order to better understand the relevant metaphors, but at the same time we need to keep in mind that The Bible needs to be considered in a modern light. The Bible in a lot of ways needs to be considered in light of the modern world, and the more we understand about the past the more we understand about The Bible.The problem is that difference between "ancient metaphor" versus "modern meaning" is rarely allowed for in most arguments.

Faulty logic is a fun one. The problem is that the atheist comes in with what they think is a great argument, but the religious person responds with “[facepalm]”. One of the more current ones is that The Bible supports slavery, which is an interesting argument given how the Abolitionists used The Bible to slap down slavery. The problem is that Paul’s Letter to Tarsus can be read about how slaves should behave. However, it can also be read about how Philemon, the slave in question, should be freed, especially as there are a couple of threats from Paul. Basically, there’s a good argument for slavery there, but you need to ignore a whole lot that’s in the book.

So…In short, atheists love their semantics, but need to leave them behind. After all, if the best argument is based on how it’s argued rather than what’s being argued, then you probably don’t have much of an argument…

Religion and Science Should be Allies, Not Enemies

Pat Robertson being silly again.

I had to respond to this one, as there are several issues with it. For those that choose not to read the article, the basic point is that, as we in America and by extension other developed nations, have turned towards science, we have also seen a decrease in miracles; by choosing to believe in science, we have turned away from God. The smaller problem is that God has repeatedly said that He likes it when people help themselves, and that you should not test Him through meaningless miracles. This is an important point; we have learned that point, and so we don’t rely on God. Admittedly it has becomes a source of pride, and therefore its own sin, but we have nonetheless found a certain degree of truth to God’s desire regarding His people becoming self-reliant.

At the same time it is likely that miracles are still happening, but that we don’t perceive them as such. After all, a miracle that is just a slight change of odds is not going to be seen as a miracle. One of the problems with having such an improved medical service is simply that what we saw for miracles at one point is now everyday. Ultimately, there isn’t anything wrong that as long as we recognize that we have come a long ways, and that we still have a long ways to go.

It also comes off as preferring ignorance over knowledge. Religion at its best encourages science; it encourages people to look around at the creation. It may sound weird, but for some knowing that there are rules encourages them to find out what they are simply so they can rebel against them. Almost every field of study owes its origins to religious study; to ignore that history isn’t just ignorance, it’s self-destructive. Worse, a leader encouraging his flock to disregard science’s advances or, worse, saying that they are dangerous is a leader that needs to serious debate his position. It’s fine to have an opinion but when that opinion is dangerous that opinion needs to be debated.

In short, if there seem to be fewer miracles in the developed countries, it may simply be because we may lack the ability to see them, or be looking in the wrong place. It’s been suggested that as a race we are still in our adolescence; if God is truly acting as our father, He may just be letting us do our own thing for a little while to give us our space to do our own thing and see what happens, just as good parents do. And just like a good parent He may be acting from behind the scenes to keep an eye on us, and occasionally run interference for us once in a while when He thinks we won’t notice. I’m just hoping that we live to see adulthood…

Four Quick Questions About Easter

Origins of Easter

Easter itself is originally a Jewish holiday that was then adopted by the early Christians and expanded a little. Jesus Christ’s ministry paralleled Passover, including the Crucifixion, making Him the sacrificial lamb. In fact, there are so many parallels between Jesus’ life and Passover that if you wanted to argue that The Bible was a story rather than history, this would be the best argument. The Passover was adapted by early Christians and expanded upon by the early church, eventually becoming the forty days period of fasting and celebrating.

Easter is a pagan holiday.

Not necessarily true. The name itself comes from a Germanic deity Ēostre, goddess of the dawn. Although there are those that believe it has to do with Ishtar, the origin of the name pretty much goes all around the Middle East, ranging from India to the German area to North England. However, the name is pretty much the only part that is ultimately uniquely pagan. As Christianity spread, the springtime celebration sometimes combined with local traditions to create some unique traditions. It is thus hard to tell where pagan and Christian traditions begin and end.

What is it with the eggs and bunnies?

The two have their own symbolic meanings for early Christians. The eggs represented the empty cave of Jesus’ tomb, and the hare was linked to Mary, Mother of Jesus. Eggs were also considered dairy, and therefore prohibited during Lent; as chickens did not conveniently stop laying them during that period of time, the eggs had to be boiled to preserve them until after Easter. (Combine a bored populace with a stack of white canvasses that are piling up and it’s hard not to see why there are so many egg traditions.) It wasn’t hard to eventually link the two, as they are both symbols of fertility. The idea of a bunny that spread eggs and acted as a judge of children eventually coalesced, and the Easter Bunny became a sort of springtime Santa Claus, leaving behind bonnets and other items.

Why does Easter change the date each year?

The date of Easter is based on a lunar calendar rather than a solar one. It is celebrated approximately on the Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox (it’s a little more complicated, but that’s a good enough approximation). Because it is based on the lunar calendar, it is subject to moving based on the date of the full moon. There has been reform suggested, and the date itself is part of numerous controversies, but how the date is chosen is unlikely to change any time soon.  

I hope this has helped a little bit…