This week, U.S. Representative Emanuel Cleaver, a Methodist preacher who last year tried to pass legislation that would have allowed churches to operate as political money laundering machines, gave a speech in which he argued that members of Congress need to be glued together. He said, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could glue ourselves to each other across the aisle? I mean, after all, it is only if we are sticking together that we’re going to be able to address the problems that face this country. The truth of the matter is we already have some glue. One Nation under God – patriotic glue.”
From the pulpit where Cleaver preaches, it may seem that the Christian god is a glue that can bring all Americans together, and leave them stuck together, but social survey data consistently reveal another picture. Americans are not all unified around the idea of any god. Many religious Americans don’t believe in the Christian god, and many other Americans aren’t religious in any way, preferring to leave behind the ancient, bloody history of belief in divinities. They recognize that belief in gods leaves society stuck with ugly, repressive, violent ideas and practices.
It’s not the job of any member of Congress to try to cram all Americans into a single religious vision. Representative Cleaver should leave his Silly Putty theology behind at his church office when he goes to work for the American people in Congress.
Is it possible that belief in God leaves society with some pretty healthy ideas and practices as well? You know, don’t steal, don’t kill, love one another. Maybe we can just eat the fish and spit out the bones.
You think nobody loved eachother before Christianity????
I’m not a theist, but I’ve never wanted to kill anyone, and a whole lot of Christians were pounding their fists demanding war in Iraq…
Let me put it differently. Love one another. A seemingly good idea, but if you or I say it, where is the authority behind it? Is it possible that belief in God for many people provides the authority behind ideas that otherwise may bring only confusion and contention to the daily business of living in our society? You never wanted to kill anyone, so does that mean I should feel the same way about murder as you do? If you say I should, on what authority do you make that claim? I for one am glad that many (and there are many) who don’t seem to be able to develop a functional value system from their own experiences in life at least in some measure are provided with guardrails that authority (God) backed precepts give them. Can religious authority sometimes be problematical? Of course it can, so, eat the fish…and spit out the bones. (The fish metaphor comes easily to us down here on the coast in what some describe as a quaint little drinking town with a fishing problem).
Fortunately, I’m one of those that doesn’t need a fear of god, the “authority” as you call it, for my moral compass to be straight. My value system is working just fine, thank you.
Paul, how do you know your moral compass is straight?
How do you tell which part is the bones, Dave, if your sense of morality is based only upon the authority of what religious officials tell you is right? That’s the road that led the English to burn people at the stake in the defense of Christianity.
Incisive, F.G. Thanks for the parry. I am sure the English thought they were OK. Mao thought he was OK and murdered millions. Many throughout the world perp hideous crimes on their fellow beings without any religious justification whatever, so it would seem that the religious could take the adverse of your argument to say that irreligion is the cause. Just saying, I would still rather see the many whose conscience may be shaped by their faith in positive ways continue in their desire to behave well and follow “be kind to one another” type precepts even if they came to it in a tertiary manner. It’s safer for all of us. Ted Bundy thought he was OK, and his many victims would have benefited had he early in life at least considered that there could be someone bigger and badder than the judges he tried to outwit who would hold him ulitmately accountable. I suspect that for many, especially those with psychopathic tendencies, that seed of fear, if you will, is an acceptable way to keep them observing appropriate boundaries, considering the dearth of other means societies may employ.
Your original argument was that moral authority stops people makes people do good things, and therefore that in as much as religion provides moral authority it is a good thing.
Fitzer demonstrated, using the example of the English buring people at the stake in defense of Christianity, that moral authority can also cause people to do bad things.
You pointed out, using the example of Maoism, that non-religious moral authorities can also cause people to do bad things. (I’m going to leave aside the whole issue of the degree to which the cult to Mao is or was “religious” in some sense of the word.)
Both examples prove that moral authority doesn’t necessarily lead to good behavior–which undermines your original argument in favor of the goodness of religion.
Does a religious upbringing reduce the incidence of violence among psychotics? That seems like something that could be demostrated statistically. I don’t know that it has. As a matter of fact, I don’t know of any definitive evidence that religion causes good behavior across the board. You’d think if you had an all-powerful, purely good being on your side–and ethical guidelines provided by that being–the overall effect on ethical behavior would be discernible.
Ralph, the only real stats I found are various studies of recidivism rates for prisoners who had exposure to religious training while incarcerated. The studies were done by various groups with various agendas hoping for results that validate their beliefs about this, and show anything from 0 to an 11 percent decrease in recidivism. Not significant and not cited here because, after all, who can you believe? (I promise to shut up about this if one were to demonstrate an increase in recidivism).