Is religion all bad?
At Chris and Tom’s flat-warming party on Friday night I was involved in debating a variety of subjects centred on atheism and my recent post about branding and marketing a national organisation to represent atheists. One of the main criticisms that have arisen from my treatment of the subject is that by defining and then commercialising the atheist position then the outcome will be a form of religious atheism.
On mention of this I railed and started to form an argument against this outcome. It is almost universally accepted that a religious atheism is bad and should be guarded against completely. A view I have long shared. A religious atheism conjures up images of Dawkins/Darwin/Russell/”insert leading atheist figure here” worship, it implies a removal of rational thought and scepticism, and it makes most atheists fly into a long winded and well rehearsed defence of the irreligiousness of the atheist world view.
Why this instant defence though? What is it about combining religion and atheism that worries atheists? The debates I was involved in on Friday got me thinking quite deeply on this subject and I struggle to find a real and rational explanation.
My immediate reaction is to claim that the main features of religion, i.e. worship, ritual and faith, have no place in an atheist’s world view. I agree that the common themes of the Abrahamic religions and many of the Eastern religions are contrary to the scientific, rational approach of many atheists. However, religion is not defined by its practices. In fact, defining religion is an incredibly challenging and possibly fruitless task.
According to Clifford Geertz (pictured left), religion is merely a cultural system whilst a dictionary definition reads “a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe.” Whilst there are a great many other definitions for religion, the fact that these definitions exist mean that religion is not dependent on faith in superhuman deities, miracles or any of the other elements that atheists abhor about the idea of religion. I would suggest that actually, the parts of religion that are common throughout all definitions, e.g. community, cultural identity, shared goals, common purpose are the exact qualities I alluded to in my article on a way of living as atheists and humanists.
Building on this premise it is logical to suggest that an atheist religion is not the oxymoron you would first assume and actually leads to a better understanding of what people find most attractive about the established religions. It is not a great leap to say that many people do not claim to be religious because they firmly believe in the ideology of their chosen religion but find that the religion offers the community support, cultural identity, shared goals and common purpose they require. Why can an atheist organisation not offer a similar service?
The downside to a religious atheism is that while it would probably attract new people there are a great many current atheists that would find the idea unpalatable. This is clearly a problem in a time when it is hard enough to unite atheists over an issue. The only way to clear this obstacle is to go back to the idea of building a brand. The need to clearly position an atheist religion in such a way as to maximise its impact on the general public whilst maintaining its current supporter base is clear and would require the most delicate handling. This is not an easy task and is likely the stumbling block that would prevent such a movement taking off. However, this should not be a deterrent. An atheist religion is not the bad idea that most atheists make out and perhaps should not be dismissed as readily as it currently is.
Dogma too, don’t forget that as a common ingredient of the big religions. The word itself has so many definitions that you could of course find one that fits next to the word “atheist,” in that sense you could say “I play WoW religiously” or anything else like that. But atheists are not fans of the faith-based religions that discourage critical thinking and rationality, so you are going to have a tough time bringing them around to the use of the word “religion” to describe them. Maybe you should try a different word instead? How about “cult”?
I think religion may be a good word to convay what it is that such a movement would provide. It would essentially be a religion in the sense that people associate the community aspect of it (that even the non-religious desire) with religion and so by calling it so you’re appealing to those people.
The downside of course is that many of the non-religious movement associate religion with the negative aspects of it such as the faith and the supernatural. Unfortunately I suspect if we started to use the term religion we would lose the ability to take the moral high ground as the rational alternative to religion. Maybe that is what we need to do but I like to think that it isn’t.
That seems to be just semantics rather than the issue however. The real issue I think, which is the issue you brought up at Skeptics, is what do we actually offer? What is our common purpose to unite around? What can we offer that say interest groups can’t that would be strong enough to make people join such a movement?
Religion is all good.
Gravitation Force is the Ultimate Creator, this paper I presented at the 1st Int. Conf. on Revival of Traditional Yoga, held at The Lonavla Yoga Institute (India), Lonavla, Pune in 2006. The Abstract of this paper is given below:
The Universe includes everything that exists. In the Universe there are billions and billions of stars. These stars are distributed in the space in huge clusters. They are held together by gravitation and are known as galaxies. Sun is also a star. Various members of the solar system are bound to it by gravitation force. Gravitation force is the ultimate cause of birth and death of galaxy, star and planets etc. Gravitation can be considered as the cause of various forms of animate and inanimate existence. Human form is superior to all other forms. Withdrawal of gravitational wave from some plane of action is called the death of that form. It can be assumed that gravitation force is ultimate creator. Source of it is ‘God’. Gravitational Field is the supreme soul (consciousness) and its innumerable points of action may be called as individual soul (consciousness). It acts through body and mind. Body is physical entity. Mind can be defined as the function of autonomic nervous system. Electromagnetic waves are its agents through which it works. This can be realized through the practice of meditation and yoga under qualified meditation instruction. This can remove misunderstanding between science and religion and amongst various religions. This is the gist of all religious teachings – past, present and future.
AND
‘In Scientific Terminology Source of Gravitational Wave is God’ I have presented this paper at the 2nd World Congress on Vedic Sciences held at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi on February 9-11, 2007. The Abstract of this paper is given below:
For Centuries, antagonism remained between science and religion. Science and spirituality require to be fused. An integrated philisophy is to be developed. It is written in the scriptures that entire creation is being maintained only through love or force of attraction. In Persian it is known as quvat-i-jaziba. It is on account of this force that the entire creation, which come into existence through the combination of small particles and atoms, is being maintained and sustained. The creation or universe includes everything that exists. In the universe there are billions and billions of stars. They are held together by gravitation and are known as galaxies. Sun is also a star. Various members of the solar system are bound to it by gravitation force. Gravitation force is the ultimate cause of birth and death of a galaxy, star and planet etc. and various forms of animate and inanimate existence. Gravitation force is the ultimate creator, sustainer and destroyer of the universe. These are the three attributes of God. Providence has located within the human body a spiritual faculty. When this faculty is developed like physical and mental faculties we find that Truth-the goal of science and God-the goal of religion are one and the same thing.