Everything [about religion] is right until it's wrong...

"Everything is right until it's wrong," says one character in the film "Hemingway's Garden of Eden." He then adds "You'll know when it's wrong." The lines were lifted from Ernest Hemingway's allegedly autobiographical novel published a quarter century after his death.

It made me think of my history with religion.

When I was very young, everything seemed right with religion. "Jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so..." are the lyrics we sang almost every week in Sunday school, assuring us that Jesus loved us and that he would protect us. My parents were so certain that this was true, that their love for Jesus was somewhat overwhelming.

For me, religion was right until it was wrong and I knew when it started to go wrong and continued to go wrong for me.

I usually say my religious skepticism began when I was 12, but I can't remember exactly when it started.  I may have been younger.  I remember asking questions in Sunday school that no one could answer, such as, "Why are there no dinosaurs in the Bible?" And when my parents decided our family would read a chapter of the Bible every day before dinner, starting with chapter 1 of Genesis, I was horrified by much of what I read. The God of the Bible certainly didn't seem like he was worthy of praise and worship, only of fear.  And when we arrived at the end of Revelation, we started over so I had to read those horrendous and violent stories again.

After hearing the Hemingway quote, I decided to make a list of what seemed/was/is right with religion and then what I learned is wrong with it.  The list will not be immediately complete, as I will think of new things to add to it over time.

I would be glad to hear your two-cents worth of right and wrong things about religion (religion in general or any specific religion) in the comment section ---and if I agree, I will add them to my lists.

WHAT SEEMED/WAS/IS RIGHT ABOUT RELIGION?

For some people, religion is a comfort.

For some, religion provides a sense of belonging.

Some religious institutions do selfless charitable work, without requiring that recipients listen to sermons or accept their religious philosophies before receiving help.

Many members of religious congregations help each other in times of need.  When my sister was dying of cancer, members of her church drove her to appointments, made meals for her family, shopped and ran other errands when her family was unable to do everything.  I'm sure church members prayed with her, too. I personally think that prayer does no good but, most likely, my sister was comforted by their efforts.

Religion seems to help some people stay out of prison, overcome drug or alcohol abuse, etc.  An equally intense secular program might do as well, but the added incentive of heaven or fear of hell, probably helps. The life of an addict and the effects addiction has on family members and other victims, are probably worse than the negative effects of religion.

Religions teach right and wrong. In general they teach good values, unless they go overboard and expect perfection or use extreme views in hateful ways (such as Fred Phelps.)

Many religious people volunteer time/money for good works ---but so do many non-religious people. (If one disregards money donated directly to religious institutions, atheists actually donate more to charity than religious people.)


WHAT SEEMED/WAS/IS WRONG ABOUT RELIGION?

For some people, religion is a crutch which allows them to remain dependent, emotionally disabled, or childlike.

Some religious charitable institutions require recipients to listen to sermons or accept its religious philosophy before receiving help, thus the services provided are self-serving, not selfless acts of kindness.

Some religions instill debilitating shame and guilt on its members.

Some religions set moral standards almost no one can achieve and if one is so caught up in preaching against sin, some sins become almost irresistible. (Ted Haggard, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, are you listening?)

Almost everyone believes his/her religion is the one true religion. They cannot all be right, but they can all be wrong.

Many religious leaders claim and want their congregations to believe that they are in possession of the whole truth ---yet no one is in possession of the whole truth about anything, especially religious concepts that cannot be proven.

Religion divides us ---pits one religion or one sect against another.  A perfect example is the frequent fights that erupt in the Church of the Nativity and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher between factions of monks fighting over territory within the churches.

Religious people tend to dislike, hate and/or have animosity toward those who disagree with them. Just read the crank mail received by the Freedom From Religion Foundation ---most of it from so-called "good Christians" ---you know, those people who are supposed to love their neighbors and enemies. Many non-believers or people of minority religions have reason to fear all those "good Christians." Students (and their family members) have been threatened and/or attacked physically or verbally after blowing the whistle on proselytising teachers, for example.

Religion can turn people into snobs.  They truly believe they are superior to others who have different beliefs or no religious beliefs at all. On the other hand, I know some atheists who look down their noses at religious people, too. It's the tribe instinct for mankind to do this, whether it be by supporting a sports team or a core belief.

Religion makes some people downright mean. Example: Fred Phelps.

Religion makes some people dangerous. Examples: Muslim terrorists, those who blow up abortion clinics, crusaders, Jim Jones.

Religious leaders have hidden the bad acts of some of its religion's leaders/members in order to keep up the appearance or reputation of the church and/or to hold onto its power.  (The Catholic Church's many sins include corruption in the Papacy, suppression of pedophile priests and abuse in Magdalene homes for women.) This shows that the religion's reputation and power are more important than the welfare of its members.

The Catholic church has threatened to excommunicate members who take a pro-choice stance on abortion. Apparently pedophile sex is not enough for priests to be excommunicated. In Brazil an entire medical team was excommunicated after performing an abortion on an 80-lb. nine-year-old who was pregnant with her stepfather's twins. Because of her age and size she was not expected to survive the pregnancy. Apparently rape of a nine-year-old stepdaughter is not worthy of excommunication.

Religion has been an underlying cause in countless wars. I can name very few wars that have not had religion as, at least in part, one of its causes. There is a theory that wars fought over land eventually end when one side takes definitive control over the property in question.  But religious wars (or any war based on a difference in ideology) never end.

Religion makes people do good in hopes of gaining a ticket to heaven, instead of doing good for goodness sake.

Religions teach myth and superstition as truth, thus blurring the lines between truth and fiction, between belief and rational thought. This results in poor reasoning abilities.

Religion causes wishful thinking which gives false hopes and results in unhappiness when those hopes are dashed.  Our dreams need to be based on reasonable expectations and the knowledge that dreams are usually fulfilled after much hard work and not the result of prayer.

Religious zealots think they can put their religious beliefs above all else, above the laws of their country or community and even above compassion.

Many reconstructionist Christians want to return to Biblical laws ---laws that would permit executions for homosexuality, abortion, or adultery.  Some even advocate public stoning as the preferred method of execution.  This sounds so much like radical Islam ---a religion that Christian zealots hate. (Is it true that we become what we hate?)

Religion seems to be obsessed with other people's sex lives. Sex is sinful before, after, or outside of marriage.  It is sinful with a same-sex partner. It is sinful if it is used as recreation rather than procreation. It is sinful to lust, even if only in one's heart, not in actual acts.

Karen Armstrong argues that in their terror of sex and hatred of women, theologians developed and propagated "the Christian sexual neurosis," an unholy trinity of women, sex, and sin that became identified with Christianity. Christian women have been forced to accept certain prescribed traditional stereotypical roles, as virgins, martyrs, witches, wives and mothers. Even though the women's movement of the 1970s and thereafter has overcome some of this, the Pat Robertson's of the world continue to rant against feminists.

Re: the above statements on sex ---it seems that many highly-religious people are simply jealous of anyone having more or better sex than they are.

In some religions, women are required to cover their hair, bodies and/or faces. I can't help but believe it is not to protect them from lustful men but to punish them for being perceived temptresses.  Islam considers that rape is not a sin on the part of a male, only on the part of the "temptress" female and is actually her just punishment for whatever sins she is perceived to have committed.

Many of the most outspoken of religious people are the worst hypocrites. Examples: Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Ted Haggard, George Rekers to name only a few.

Some religious zealots blame all disasters on groups they dislike.  Pat Robertson is a master at this.  According to him, almost every disaster (earthquake, tsunami, 9/11) has been caused by God's retribution against homosexuals, abortionists, feminists, liberals, the ACLU, atheists, Hindus, and/or Muslims.  I wonder why God killed so many "innocent Christians" in natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina instead of warning them (as he allegedly did Noah) to get the hell out of New Orleans.

Most of the highly-religious people I know personally have little sense of humor.  What a shame that they can't have much fun.

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This will be an ongoing project.  I will be adding more to this post as time permits.

I repeat: I would love to hear your input about right and wrong things about religion (religion in general or any specific religion) in the comment section ---and if I agree, I will add them to my lists.

The Invention of Lying - Movie Review

Plot Summary:

This film starts with a blind date between Mark (Ricky Gervais) and Anna (Jennifer Garner) who live in a world where everyone tells, not only the truth, but blurts out everything they are thinking:  "Yes, that dress makes you look fat" or "Your baby is so ugly, it's like a little rat."

No one has any imagination or creativity because there is nothing beyond what everyone can see. There are no white lies to save people from hurt feelings. Therefore everyone who is not beautiful and successful lives in a depressing stupor.

Mark loves Anna but she sees him as a loser who would produce fat, snub-nosed children. He is out of her league and, well, Brad (Rob Lowe) comes from a more attractive gene pool.

After being threatened with eviction, Mark suddenly breaks out of his stupor and tells a lie that makes everything better for him. And his lying makes others feel better, too. Everyone  believes everything he says because they can't imagine anyone telling something that "isn't."

Mark had been a screenwriter assigned to writing movies about the 13th century, a very boring historical period. Since there is little of interest to write about and he can't make the Black Plague exciting, he has been laid off. But, as soon as he realizes he can lie, he invents fiction, therefore his screenplays are so fantastic and interesting (albeit inane) that he becomes rich. Everyone believes his fictitious stories are the absolute truth.

Later, at his mother's death bed, Mark tells a lie to make her feel better about dying. He is overheard by the hospital staff and soon everyone believes he is a prophet.

I don't want to give more of the plot away, but the rest of the film involves the conflict of absolute truth and lying and the problems each can cause.

Opinions:

In several on-line reviews, people said the movie started out well and then went downhill, but for me, the opposite happened.  I thought most of the beginning was rather inane, but as it went on, I liked it more ---perhaps because it threw some light on why people believe the things they do.

I wouldn't call it a great movie, but I enjoyed the film. Netflix viewers gave it an average of 3 (out of 5) stars and IMDB readers rated it 6.4 (out of 10.)  Actually, the remarks ran the gamut: loved it, hated it, or so-so.

I liked that it was thought-provoking, yet (as you'll see below) simply "provoking" to some.  It had much to say about religion. As a non-believer, I found parts of it laugh-out-loud funny with lots of low-key humor in-between.

If that isn't enough to make an atheist want to see it, these reviews from Netflix might change your mind:

•"This movie is terrible, boring, not funny, and an attack on religion. If I didn't have to return it, I would put it in the shredder."

•"I thought that it was just terrible! The first 30 minutes or so were great but then they brought in religion and I found it very offensive and I didn't like it at all. It was very hard to finish the movie."

•"**SPOILER** This film is so disappointing. It completely makes fun of religion and seems to say that it is all made up. I felt like it was saying that if you are religious, you are gullible and stupid. I couldn't give it no stars so I rated it as low as I could."

•"The movie ended up being an insult and persecution of Christians everywhere. They mocked everything from God to the Ten Commandments. With the cast that this movie had it should have been really funny, but instead was a complete waste of time. It wasn't worth finishing and I would never recommend it to anyone. It I could give it less than a star I would."

I'm surprised any up-tight religious people got as far as the attack-on-religion parts. I would have thought they would have turned it off during the first five minutes when Anna blurts out that she had been masturbating when Mark rang her doorbell. (Some admitted they didn't watch more than a few minutes of it.)

Yes, it is an attack on religion, but it is fiction and it is a comedy.

Just a few more reviews from Netflix:

•"I loved this movie. It has a unique story line and makes you think outside the box. This is a true humanist movie."

•"Yeah it is anti-christian but it is hilarious...so get over it!!! This movie is great and I would suggest watching this movie."

GOD DOESN'T CARE ABOUT POLITICS OR FOOTBALL

For years, now, candidates in the U.S., especially Republican candidates, have  been making statements that God wants them to run for political office.  We have heard this in the past from the likes of Mike Huckabee and, more recently, several of the 2012 candidates for president.

And now we have a national hero in Tim Tebow, because of his open Christianity on the football field.  No wonder my husband often refers sarcastically to the "Church of Football" because in my neck of the woods, some churches hold Sunday services early, or not at all, to accommodate football fans.

Football fans and members of religious sects and political parties all share something in common. They are tribal.  They are tribal because they form group ties characterized not only by strong loyalty to the groups they support, but also vehement hatred of opposing groups.

Bill Press

Bill Press who is the host of a nationally syndicated radio show and author of Toxic Talk: How the Radical Right Has Poisoned America's Airwaves" wrote an great article:
GOD DOESN'T CARE ABOUT POLITICS OR FOOTBALL.

Here are a few excerpts from his 12/15/11 article:

Psssst! Don’t tell anybody, but I have a secret. I talk to God every day. And she told me herself: She doesn’t give a fig who wins the Republican primary. But you’d never know that, listening to today’s Christian political charlatans.

No less than four out of eight Republican candidates have said they’re only running for president because God told them to run. Michele Bachmann started it, insisting that God called her to run for president, just like he told her to run for Congress in 2006. Rick Perry told reporters: “God has put me in this place at this time to do his will...”

God was also speaking to Mrs. Rick Santorum, who told the Christian Broadcasting Network: “We have prayed a lot about this decision, and we believe with all our hearts that this is what God wants.” But nobody played the God card more shamefully than Herman Cain...

Now, obviously, if we are to take these candidates seriously, God is either confused, forgetful, senile, or just playing with their heads. If he really cares about who wins the Republican primary, he wouldn’t have told four different candidates to run. And, notice, he didn’t tell any of the four they’d actually win... 

Today, as quarterback of the Denver Broncos, [Tim] Tebow takes religion to a new public level, dramatically dropping to one knee in prayer after every touchdown – a pose now officially known as “tebowing” – and crediting Jesus for every success on the field....

Now, if you’re one of the silly millions who still see nothing wrong with Tebow’s in-your-face brand of religion, consider this: What if Tim Tebow were a devout Muslim who bowed to Mecca after every touchdown while shouting: “Allahu Akbar!” Somehow, I don’t think we’d be celebrating him as a national hero.

To read the entire article, click HERE.

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And while on the subject of religion and politics, you might also be interested in this:
Rick Santorum: Insane Christian

New Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1

Mark Twain's outspoken views on religion were often suppressed by his only surviving daughter and by Twain's own biographers. Twain directed that some of his writings not be published until 100 years after his death. This year, 2010, marks the 100th anniversary of Twain's passing. Finally, the autobiography that Twain wished to be published is being published in 3 volumes. The first was made available, just this month.

Here is one of the many things Twain had to say about religion in the new version of his autobiography:

"There is one notable thing about our Christianity: bad, bloody, merciless, money-grabbing, and predatory. The invention of hell measured by our Christianity of today, bad as it is, hypocritical as it is, empty and hollow as it is, neither the deity nor his son is a Christian, nor qualified for that moderately high place. Ours is a terrible religion. The fleets of the world could swim in spacious comfort in the innocent blood it has spilled."

An excellent review of the new autobiography can be found at:

http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2011-03/MarkTwain.html

ALAN ALDA on RELIGION

ALAN ALDA

b. 1936

actor and nonbeliever

Excerpt from "Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself"

"I sat next to a young woman on a plane once who bombarded me for five hours with how she had decided to be born again and so should I. I told her I was glad for her but I hadn't used up being born the first time. Nothing stopped her. She was married to an acquaintance of mine, and I couldn't turn her off. I left the plane with an ache in my head the size of a grapefruit. I'm certain she led a life that was meaningful to her and had just had five meaningful hours of it. But it didn't mean she was living the good life. And for five hours neither was I. Fight for what you believe in, they say. Serve a higher purpose than yourself. This will give you fulfillment. It can also turn you into the lady on the plane. Or even a terrorist. Terrorists may feel more purpose in their lives than other people do, but that doesn't mean terrorists are any better off, and neither are the rest of us.
"If I was going looking for meaning, I didn't want meaning that would betray other people, and I didn't want it to betray me. I wanted it to last.... I didn't want to wake up someday and find that what had once given meaning to my life was as stale and tasteless as yesterday's gob of gum.
"For a while in my teens, I was sure I had it. It was about getting to heaven. If heaven existed and lasted forever, then a mere lifetime spent scrupulously following orders was a small investment for an infinite payoff. One day, though, I realized I was no longer a believer, and realizing that, I couldn’t go back. Not that I lost the urge to pray. Occasionally, even after I stopped believing, I might send off a quick memo to the Master of the Universe, usually on a matter needing urgent attention, like Oh, God, don’t let us crash. These were automatic expulsions of words, brief SOS messages from the base of my brain. They were similar to the short prayers that were admired by the church in my Catholic boyhood, which they called 'ejaculations.' I always liked the idea that you could shorten your time in purgatory with each ejaculation; what boy wouldn’t find that a comforting idea? But my effort to keep the plane in the air by talking to God didn’t mean I suddenly was overcome with belief, only that I was scared. Whether I’d wake up in heaven someday or not, whatever meaning I found would have to occur first on this end of eternity."

OTHER ALAN ALDA QUOTATIONS (from other sources):

"I still don't like the word agnostic. It's too fancy. I'm simply not a believer. But, as simple as this notion is, it confuses some people. Someone wrote a Wikipedia entry about me, identifying me as an atheist because I'd said in a book I wrote that I wasn't a believer. I guess in a world uncomfortable with uncertainty, an unbeliever must be an atheist, and possibly an infidel. This gets us back to that most pressing of human questions: why do people worry so much about other people's holding beliefs other than their own?" (2008 interview for the Edge Foundation website)

"Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won't come in."

"I used to be a Catholic. I left because I object to conversion by concussion. If you don`t agree with what they teach, you get clobbered over the head until you do. All that does is change the shape of the head." (from an interview in "Ms." magazine)

"Jean Paul Sartre says in 'No Exit' that hell is other people. Well, our task in life is to make it heaven. Or at least earth."

“Here's my Golden Rule for a tarnished age: Be fair with others, but keep after them until they're fair with you.”

"When people are laughing, they're generally not killing one another."

IS RELIGION A GUARANTEE OF MORAL BEHAVIOR?

(This post was originally published in February 2009.

I made some revisions and am posting it again.)

My answer to the title question is an emphatic NO!

I’m not saying all religious people are immoral. The examples I give below represent a very tiny percentage of the religious community. What I am saying is:

Being a believer is not a guarantee of moral conduct.

"Morality is not determined by the church you attend or the faith you embrace. It is determined by the quality of your character and the positive impact you have on those you meet along your journey." ---as stated on The Immoral Minority blog.

Societal health:
A study by the Journal of Religion & Society (2005) concluded: “Higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the prosperous democracies... Higher rates of non-theism and acceptance of human evolution usually correlate with lower rates of dysfunction, and the least theistic nations are usually the least dysfunctional.”
The Cambridge Companion to Atheism came up with similar findings. High levels of atheism are strongly connected with high levels of societal health: low homicide, poverty, infant mortality and illiteracy rates, high levels of educational attainment, per capita income and gender equality.
In a 1999 study, George Barna, found the percentage of people who have divorced as follows:
Jews = 30%
Born Again Christians = 27%
Mainstream Christians = 24%
Atheists/agnostics = 21%

While I don’t personally believe divorce is immoral, many religious groups think it is a sign of moral weakness.
Ron Barrier, Spokesperson for American Atheists commented: "These findings confirm what I have been saying these last five years... It stands to reason that our families would be dedicated more to each other than to some invisible monitor in the sky. With Atheism, women and men are equally responsible for a healthy marriage... Atheists reject, and rightly so, the primitive patriarchal attitudes so prevalent in many religions with respect to marriage."
James Veverka, in "The moral hypocrisy of the Bible Belt," remarked: "We hear an awful lot from conservatives in the Bible Belt and on the TV about how we all should be living. Certainly a culture that teaches the conservative religious values of the Christian right must have clean living written all over it... It doesn't. Far from it... Joining its history of Biblically correct bigotry and discrimination, it is an area with the highest divorce, murder, STD/HIV/AIDS, teen pregnancy, single parent homes, infant mortality, and obesity rates in the nation. As a region, the Bible Belt has the poorest health care systems and the lowest rates of high school graduation."

Sex and religion:
James A. Haught: “Western religions have spent millenia inflicting shame, guilt, repression and punishment upon human sexuality... The West presents... a long chronicle of religious hostility to lovers -- for no rational reason... Every censorship effort, every attempt at sexual repression, still comes from religion.” (“Sex and God: Is Religion Twisted?” Free Inquiry, Fall 1997)
Episcopal priest Raymond Lawrence wrote in a national United Methodist journal: "The churches are in danger of evolving into havens for the sexually suppressed or, worse, communities of profound hypocrisy." (Quarterly Review, summer 1985)
Dan Barker, former evangelical minister and current co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation contends that when religious zealots spend so much time thinking and preaching against sex and homosexuality, they become obsessed with it, and eventually they cannot control their sexual urges.

Annie Laurie Gaylor, another co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation) wrote Betrayal of Trust, Clergy Abuse of Children (1988), which chronicles hundreds of cases of sexual abuse by priests, ministers and rabbis in the U.S. I can't help but think that her husband Dan Barker (above) was right.
When an avalanche of accusations against priests, for sexual misconduct, hit my local area, the newspapers were filled with letters to the editor blaming the church for not allowing priests to marry. However, priests who like young boys are not interested in adult women. Others were saying that pedophiles were joining the church to have easy access to children. But one psychiatrist who had treated some of the perpetrators wrote an article that made more sense to me. He argued that men who were Catholic and knew they had a problem, chose to become priests because they thought that if they prayed enough, were pious enough, read the scriptures enough, they would be cured. We see how well that worked.
I was astounded to learn that some bishops were directing priests to deny communion or even recommend excommunication to church members who were openly pro-choice, while at the same time pedophile priests were merely slapped on the wrists and allowed to move to other parishes.


The news media have covered extensively the sexual scandals of Ted Haggard, Jim Bakker, and Jimmy Swaggert, all three ministers who were either morally bankrupt or, at the least, hypocrites. Thus I will not go into the details here. However, suffice it to say they preached often about moral weakness and sin, then did exactly what they were preaching against.

Morality and politics:
I know our lawmakers cannot be perfect and I don’t expect them to be. But when they campaign on moral issues, then disappoint us, then they are hypocrites.
U.S. Representative Mark Foley (Catholic & Republican) who was known as a crusader against child abuse and exploitation, resigned following a scandal involving teenage male Congressional pages. His replacement, Tim Mahoney (United Methodist & Democrat) ran on a platform of restoring morals to Washington. What did he do? He had a two-year affair with a former staff worker. Just about the time that hit the news, it was discovered that he had been cheating on that mistress with a second mistress. Larry Craig (Methodist and Republican) who repeatedly voted Nay on gay rights issues was caught in an airport restroom, apparently soliciting men for sex.

Religion and crime:
There have been many notorious criminals who were church members. You may remember a serial killer who called himself BTK (Bind, Torture and Kill) in Kansas. David Rader, who killed at least 10 people, was a Deacon and the Congregational President of his Lutheran Church.
David Ludwig, the Pennsylvania teenager who killed his girlfriend’s parents was a home-schooled Christian. Mark Chapman who murdered John Lennon had been described by his friends as a “Jesus freak.”

One of the evilest Christians I know of is Fred Phelps, the preacher who pickets and disrupts military funerals. He physically and psychologically abused his wife and all of his children. The only reason he is not in jail is that he convinced his sons that if they told the truth and he was put on trail, that they would go to hell. Phelps is convinced homosexuals are responsible for all the evils in the world. (His son Nate's blog, A Journey to Reason, tells much of his journey from his father's home to atheism. Read his speech to the American Atheists HERE.)
In a report from the Federal Bureau of Prisons (1997) approximately 80% of the U.S. population claimed some affiliation with a religious group and 80% of the U.S. prison population stated a religious preference. Logical, right? But then why, if (at that time) 10% of the general population claimed to be atheist, only 0.2% of the prison population said they were atheists? There are many religious people who argue that prisoners choose to say they are religious because there are benefits to doing that in prison. If that is so, then our prison system is violating the church/state separation provision of the Constitution.

One of the biggest crimes of all, which senselessly kills innocent people every day, is terrorism. Many people don't want to admit that the terrorists are religious people, but that is exactly what they are. They may be of a different religion than those who are shocked by their immoral acts, but as I pointed out in a previous post, Christians killed at least 50,000 people, just as senselessly during the 1st Crusade, and did it in the name of Christ.

Steve Allen: “It is frequently argued that a return to formal religion is the solution to the problem [of corruption.] But the prescription leaves something to be desired, for one finds practically no formal humanists, agnostics, or atheists in the ranks of the corrupt. Most of the embezzlers, swindlers, con-men and thieves... are card carrying members of one religion’s denomination or another that formally pays respect to the Old and/or New Testament.” (Ripoff, a look at corruption in America, 1979)

I repeat, I’m not saying all religious people are immoral. These cases represent very few people among the religious. What I am saying is that being religious is not a guarantee of moral conduct.

William Lobdell: “To the chagrin of evangelical pollsters and leaders, Christians–for the most part–don’t act any differently than atheists. And, in fact, in some categories (divorce rates and racism) evangelicals act worst.”

I know most religious people are good, honest, ethical people. Most non-religious people I know are also good, honest and ethical, yet they aren’t that way because they fear retribution in the afterlife.

copyright 2010 C. Woods

Click on this link for an article by Paula Kirby: "Morality: no gods required."

Click on this link for an article by Austin Cline: "Irreligious People Just as Ethical as Religious Churchgoers"

RELIGION - Rex Walls-style

Jeannette Walls’ 2005 memoir, The Glass Castle, tells the story of her eccentric family, including her atheist father, Rex Walls. (If you want to skip the rest of the review and read about her father's unconventional behavior when accompanying his Catholic wife and children to church, scroll down to the green text at the bottom of this post.)

Jeanette's memoir, which I loved, starts with her first memory as a three-year-old (c. 1963), standing on a chair cooking hot dogs. Her dress caught fire resulting in a long hospital stay and numerous skin grafts for the precocious child who loved the hospital because it was so clean and white, where the sheets were changed even when they weren't dirty.
If you wonder why a three-year-old would be allowed to cook without supervision, that’s exactly what her nurses and doctors asked.
Before Jeannette was released from the hospital, her father gathered her up and ran from the building ---obviously without paying the bill ---in what he referred to as “Rex Walls-style."

This is a prelude to Jeannette's years of growing up with charismatic parents who taught their four children about literature, art, music, history, astronomy, geology, and mathematics, and who encouraged them to be creative, see the world from an optimistic point of view, and stand up for themselves.
At the same time, Rex went from job to job, usually as an electrician at a mining company, rarely holding onto employment for more than six months at a time. He was mostly interested in drinking, gambling, conspiracy theories and creating pie-in-the-sky schemes such as a new way to find gold. He spent years imagining and drawing blueprints for the glass castle he planned to build for the family. He could convince his children that, although other children were told lies about Santa Claus, he could give them whatever star they chose for Christmas, yet he was not above stealing the children’s hard-earned money for alcohol or poker.
Despite a teaching degree, their mother, Rose Mary, preferred painting pictures that no one ever bought rather than work outside the home or make any effort to clean their long series of run-down homes that were infested with rats, roaches, and termites. The children often had to distract employees while their mother shoplifted. During the worst of times, they had no electricity or heat. Despite their miserable existence, Rose Mary encouraged her children to see the positive in every situation.

Jeannette and her siblings searched for food in dumpsters, stole leftovers from classmates' discarded lunch bags, and collected empty bottles to earn enough money to buy something to eat. When bill collectors came after their parents, the family did the skedaddle to another town, Rex Wall-style. Each family member was allowed to choose one item to take to their next home. They lived in various western towns and eventually became the poorest family in Rex's bleak hometown in West Virginia.
The book is a chronicle of parental neglect, told by Jeannette without an ounce of self pity. Life for the Walls children was dismal, yet at times, funny.

In the end, the Walls' story is uplifting, for three of the four children, including Jeannette, used their hard-earned lessons in resourcefulness to escape to New York City to become high-achieving productive adults. The youngest daughter moved to California after spending time in a mental institution. Their parents ended up homeless in New York, by choice, refusing public assistance or help from their children.

Below are two excerpts about religion which reveal the kind of sad, yet humorous, goings-on in the Walls family when Jeannette was nine:

Church was particularly excruciating when Dad came along. Dad had been raised a Baptist, but he didn’t like religion and didn’t believe in God. He believed in science and reason, he said, not superstition and voodoo. But Mom had refused to have children unless Dad agreed to raise them as Catholics and to attend church himself on holy days of obligation.
Dad sat in the pew fuming and shifting around and trying to bite his tongue while the priest carried on about Jesus resurrecting Lazarus from the dead and the communicants filed up to eat the body and drink the blood of Christ. Finally when Dad was unable to stand it any longer, he’d shout out something to challenge the priest. He didn’t do it to be hostile. He hollered out his point in a friendly tone: “Yo, Padre!” he’d say. The priest usually ignored Dad and tried to go on with his sermon, but Dad persisted. He’d challenge the priest about the scientific impossibility of the miracles, and when the priest continued to ignore him, he’d get mad and yell out something about Pope Alexander VI’s bastard children, or Pope Leo X’s hedonism, or Pope Nicholas III’s simony, or the murders committed in the name of the church during the Spanish Inquisition. But what could you expect, he’d say, from an institution run by celibate men who wore dresses. At that point the ushers would tell us we’d have to leave.

* * * * * * * *

Mom insisted that we celebrate Christmas in the Catholic fashion, getting to the [thrift-shop] gifts only after we’d attended midnight mass. Dad, knowing that all the bars and liquor stores would be closed on Christmas, had stocked up in advance. He’d popped open the first Budweiser before breakfast, and by the time midnight mass rolled around, he was having trouble standing up.
I suggested that maybe this once, Mom should let Dad off the hook about going to mass, but she said stopping by God’s house for a quick hello was especially important at times like this, so Dad staggered and lurched into the church with us. During the sermon, the priest discussed the miracle of Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Birth.
“Virgin my ass!” Dad shouted. “Mary was a sweet Jewish broad who got herself knocked up!”
The service came to a dead halt. Everyone was staring. The choir had swiveled around in unison and were gaping openmouthed. Even the priest was speechless.
Dad had a satisfied grin on his face. “And Jesus H. Christ is the world's best-loved bastard!”
The ushers grimly escorted us to the street. On the way home, Dad put his arm around my shoulder for support. “Baby girl, if your boyfriend ever gets into your panties and you find yourself in a family way, swear that it was Immaculate Conception and start mouthing off about miracles,” he said. “Then just pass around the collection plate come Sunday.”

THOMAS HUXLEY on Religion

THOMAS HUXLEY

English biologist

(1825-1895)

• “Agnosticism simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that for which he has no grounds for professing to believe.”(What Great Men Think of Religion, by Cardiff)

• “The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence.”

• “The dogma of the infallibility of the Bible is no more self-evident than is that of the infallibility of the popes.”(Contoverted Questions, 1892)

• “I have no faith, very little hope, and as much charity as I can afford.”(What Great Men Think of Religion, by Cardiff)

• “I neither deny or affirm the immortality of man. I see no reason for believing in it, but, on the other hand, I have no means of disproving it.”(Letter to Charles Kingsley, 1860)

• “Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.”(The Coming of Age of the Origin of the Species)

• “I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of ‘Agnostic.’ It came into my head as suggestively antithetic to the ‘Gnostic’ of Church history who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant.”(Agnosticism. Nineteenth Century, 1889)

• “Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men.” (Science and Culture)

• “The only question which a wise man can ask himself is whether a doctrine is true or false. Consequences will take care of themselves.” (What Great Men Think of Religion, by Cardiff)

• “What are among the moral convictions most fondly held by barbarous and semi-barbarous people? They are the convictions that authority is the soundest basis of belief; that merit attaches to readiness to believe; that the doubting disposition is a bad one, and skepticism a sin; that when good authority has pronounced what is to be believed, and faith has accepted it, reason has no further duty.” (What Great Men Think of Religion, by Cardiff)

BERTRAND RUSSELL #4 - Progress

You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.

How the Churches Have Retarded Progress

You may think that I am going too far when I say that that is still so. I do not think that I am. Take one fact. You will bear with me if I mention it. It is not a pleasant fact, but the churches compel one to mention facts that are not pleasant. Supposing that in this world that we live in today an inexperienced girl is married to a syphilitic man; in that case the Catholic Church says, "This is an indissoluble sacrament. You must endure celibacy or stay together. And if you stay together, you must not use birth control to prevent the birth of syphilitic children." Nobody whose natural sympathies have not been warped by dogma, or whose moral nature was not absolutely dead to all sense of suffering, could maintain that it is right and proper that that state of things should continue.
That is only an example. There are a great many ways in which, at the present moment, the church, by its insistence upon what it chooses to call morality, inflicts upon all sorts of people undeserved and unnecessary suffering. And of course, as we know, it is in its major part an opponent still of progress and improvement in all the ways that diminish suffering in the world, because it has chosen to label as morality a certain narrow set of rules of conduct which have nothing to do with human happiness; and when you say that this or that ought to be done because it would make for human happiness, they think that has nothing to do with the matter at all. "What has human happiness to do with morals? The object of morals is not to make people happy."

(from Bertrand Russell's lecture

Why I Am Not A Christian, March 6, 1927,

later published with other essays in 1957)

Find the full text of Why I am Not a Christian HERE.

BERTRAND RUSSELL #3 - Religion and Cruelty

That is the idea -- that we should all be wicked if we did not hold to the Christian religion. It seems to me that the people who have held to it have been for the most part extremely wicked. You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and the more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs. In the so-called ages of faith, when men really did believe the Christian religion in all its completeness, there was the Inquisition, with all its tortures; there were millions of unfortunate women burned as witches; and there was every kind of cruelty practiced upon all sorts of people in the name of religion.

(from Bertrand Russell's lecture

Why I Am Not A Christian, March 6, 1927,

later published with other essays in 1957)

BERTRAND RUSSELL #1 - Fear

FEAR

the Foundation

of Religion

Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing -- fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things. In this world we can now begin a little to understand things, and a little to master them by help of science, which has forced its way step by step against the Christian religion, against the churches, and against the opposition of all the old precepts. Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a better place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it.

(from Bertrand Russell's lecture

Why I Am Not A Christian, March 6, 1927,

later published with other essays in 1957)

RELIGION IS "OUT OF DATE"

A Gallup poll released on Christmas Eve seems to agree with studies done by the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) and reported in previous posts:

Secularism Rising, Religion Declining

and

Godless Numbers Rise

Gallup reports increases since 2000 in those who have no religious preference (from 8 to 13%), that religion is not important in people's lives (from 10 to 19%), and that religion is out of date (from 20 to 29%).

When given the choice of Protestant (or Other non-Catholic Christian), Catholic, None, or Other, approximately 22% describe their religious preference as "Other" or "None." In 1948, that figure was only 2%.

About 78% of Americans still describe themselves as Christian, down from 91% in 1948.

In the late 1990s approximately 68% of Americans thought religion had answers to the world's problems. That has decreased to 57%. More people are seeing religion in a negative light.

You can find more information, along with graphs HERE.

Gallup concludes:

The United States remains a dominantly Christian nation. Almost 8 out of 10 Americans identify with a Christian religion. And the vast majority of those who identify with any religion identify with one that is Christian.

Yet, the percentage of Americans who in theory could celebrate Christmas this week as a specific component of their religious faith is down significantly from where it was 50 or 60 years ago. The most important reason for this shift is straightforward: there has been an increasing percentage of Americans who say they have no specific religious identity.

The fact that fewer Americans say they have a religious identity does not necessarily mean there has been a decrease in overall religiosity in America. It is possible that some proportion of those who don't identify with a specific religion are still personally or spiritually religious.

Although a little more than one out of five Americans do not identify with a Christian faith, the Christmas season has ramifications for a broader segment of society. A Gallup survey conducted last year showed that 93% of all American adults said they celebrated Christmas.

SECULARISM RISING, RELIGION DECLINING

(Click on image for larger view.)

SECULARIZATION HAS OCCURRED

3B’s - BELONGING, BELIEF, BEHAVIOR

(All green text has been summarized from the transcript of a speech by Barry A. Kosmin as reported in Freethought Today, December 2009. Black text contains my own comments about this subject.)

In 1960 Catholic candidate John Kennedy was obligated to make a speech to assure Protestant leaders that he would not allow his religion to interfere with his decisions as president. In a 180 degree turnaround, since the 70s it has become almost obligatory for our presidential candidates to assure people they will use their strong religious beliefs to help them govern.
With the rise of the Religious Right, it had seemed that a renewed era of faith and religion had been going on for decades.

As reported in an earlier post, statistics don’t support that impression. According to sociologist Barry A. Kosmin in his 2008 Summary Report of the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) secularity is gradually rising while religion is slowly eroding in this country.
The 1990s saw a “secular boom” with the nonreligious increasing by about 1 million per year. By 2008 those identifying themselves as Christian dropped from 86 to 76%. Today, half of American households do not belong to a religious congregation. On an average Sunday 73% do not go to church, and 30% do not believe in a personal God. When asked directly, “What is your religion, if any?” those who responded “None” rose from 8 to 15% from 1990 to 2008 and this group is increasingby about 750,000 per year.
Sociologists use the 3B’s - belonging, belief, and behavior ---to ascertain levels of religiosity.

I like the idea of using the 3B’s to determine religiosity. I know, and I’m sure most of you do, too, people who say they believe in God but don’t attend church or exhibit religious behaviors. On the other hand, I know people who don’t believe, but who belong to a congregation for business, community or family reasons. I worked for a born-again couple who were believers, but who violated nearly every Commandment on a daily basis. They lied, gouged their customers, cheated on taxes ---and each other. I quit that job because those Christians exhibited behaviors that were not ethical enough for this atheist. Then of course are terrorists, particularly Muslim terroists, believers whose behaviors ---such as flying planes into buildings, killing thousands of innocent people ---would not be considered “religious” by most.

By using the 3B’s, sociologists have determined that the average American has become much less religious since 1990. This tendancy has affected the economy, law, education, and the family. The Religious Right has failed to make much of an impact on the law or on public opinion in its efforts to stem the rise of secularity.
In many areas, Sunday blue laws have been elimintaed, gambling has been legalized, abortion, contraception and pornogrpahy are available, homosexuality has been decriminalized, mandated prayer and Bible reading are banned in public schools, civil unions or same-sex marriage has been legalized, more than ever heterosexual couples are choosing to live together and have children outside of marriage. Religious leaders spoke out against these changes, with little impact.
The reason it seemed that religion was gaining ground when it was not, was because the most religiously active people began identifying themselves with conservative politics which resulted in a political influence in the Republican Party that could not be ignored by the media. It also resulted in “culture wars” that seemed to divide us politically more than ever.

Remember that the sqeaky wheel gets the oil, and we had a lot of squeakers out there: Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Ted Haggard, Oral Roberts, James Dobson, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, George W. Bush, all pushing the agenda of the Religious Right. These people kept themselves in the news and seemed like they were more influential and had more followers than was the reality.

In a 2006 report by Gruber & Hungerman, following the elimination of Sunday blue laws, church no longer holds a monopoly on Sunday activities. Church attendance falls by about 5%, 15% of those who regularly attended church attend less frequently, church donations fall by 13% (about $109 per person/year.) Spending by religious groups falls by 6.3%.

Yet, many still consider Sunday to be like a holiday reserved for religion and family. I worked for a company who paid 35% more to those who worked on Sunday. I always volunteered to work Sunday shifts because they were less hectic than weekdays or Saturdays, yet I was paid more because some people didn’t want to work on their Sabbath. Those who volunteered to work on religious holidays earned 2.5 times their regular pay.

While the number of Catholics dropped from 50 to 33% and the number of main-stream or liberal Protestants also dropped in the past two decades, many Christians have chosen to attend non-denominational mega-churches. A full 33% of those who identify themselves as Christian, say they are born-again or evangelical.
But the long-term effect of the Religious Right was a reaction against its judgmentalism, especially among women and young adults.

With the number of evangelicals rising at the same time “nones” are increasing, no wonder the people of this country are so divided on nearly every social issue.

Some think that the rise in religions other than Christianity in the U.S. has caused the percentage of Christians to drop, but surprisingly, all of the non-Chrisitan religious groups add up to less than 4% of the total population ---that includes all Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, and other fringe religions combined. The largest religious group among Asians is “nones” ---27%. Hispanics without a religious affiliation outnumber Latino pentacostals 4 to 1. Scholars often surmise that immigrants are attracted to this country because of its freedom of religion, but fail to take into account that many --- such as those seekiing to escape Muslim fundamentalism, persecution, and violence ---choose to come here because of its freedom from religion.
Besides the decrease in belonging to a relgious congregation and a decrease in religious behaviors, levels of belief have fallen, too. Fewer Americans believe in an inerrant Bible, fewer have confidence in religious leaders, and fewer tolerate religious involvement in public policy.
The 2008 report found 70% still believe in a personal God, but a full 12% believe in a deist-style higher power, 12% consider themselves agnostic, and 2% atheists. However, specific theological questions reveal greater numbers of atheists and agnostics than self-identifying questions.
Confidence in religious organizations dropped from 32 to 20%. Those who strongly agreed that religious leaders should not try to influence government increased from 22% in 1991 to 31% in 1998.
Several studies on religion and their publicly-reported findings have generated more interest in atheism, irreligion, and secularism ---more books, blogs, discussions, debates. And, of course, that has resulted in counterattacks against freethinkers.
Kosmin concluded his presentatioin with these words. “Nevertheless, I believe the evidence shows that the Zeitgeist*, if not the Force, is with the ‘nones.’ Secularization in America has occurred, is occurring and will continue to occur as the authority of religion and clergy erodes in our society.”

* Zeitgeist (from German Zeit-time and Geist- spirit) is "the spirit of the times" and/or "the spirit of the age." Zeitgeist is the general cultural, intellectual, ethical, spiritual, and/or political climate within a nation or even specific groups, along with the general ambience, morals, and sociocultural direction or mood of an era (similar to the English word mainstream or trend).

See my earlier post which summarizes this information.

Find interactive graphs on this study here.