On the equivocation of morality and religion.

[varkam]

Compassion Forum? Oh, FSM!

I've lived in America most of my life, so this sort of blending of morality and theology is nothing new to me. In my newspaper, I get a section entitled "Faith & Values", the implication being that they are sort of one in the same - or at least similiar. They are neither. John Stuart Mill, writing about his father, explained that one of the problems with religion is that it allows for genuine moral character and caliber to be exchanged for piety and ceremony. As an outsider to the whole religious fervor in the States, I'd have to say that he is spot on. Time and time again, it is explained to me through the teevee, or the internet, or amongst the people in my town how people who don't think exactly like them are not moral people. The hubris and the arrogance of this, of course, is the implication that they are good people on the basis of nothing more than what they think the status is of the veracity of a collection of works written and re-written over the last 2 millenia. Or not even the veracity! Sometimes it can come down to one's particular parochial brand of interpretation (The old SoBap joke comes to mind).

Theirs is a small god. Theirs is a god that bears their own prejudices, their own hatreds, their own fears. As George Bernard Shaw once wrote, no man believes the bible says what it means but rather that it means what he says.

I for one, am sick of it. I am sick of hearing, time and time again, that I am not moral unless I profess adoration to this small god of theirs. When I refuse, or when I have the temerity to point out that maybe, just maybe, if there is a god and if we really are all god's children, then maybe we should spend less time hating our brothers and sisters then I am blasted as a bigot, as a heretic, as...you guessed it...immoral.

So I'm sorry if this seems a little undeserved, but it does rake at my sense of fairness. I'm tired of morality being subsumed under the banner of religion, especially when religion can be implicated in some of the worst atrocities in human history. That's not necessarily a dig at religion, but when I look around I don't tend to see religious people being the best among us. I see people being people, some good, and some bad. On the whole, there seems to be very little correlation between how good one is and how often one attends church, or to what brand of church.

That's my .02.

:rant:

[LWolf]

1. I'm happy to be the first to recommend this thread.

I don't even know who John Stuart Mill is, but 48 years of exposure to the modern american brand of christianity has left me convinced that, while there are many good people who try to stay focused on the more positive teachings, there is nothing compassionate or ethical about organized christianity itself.

[ismnotwasm]

2. Good for you!

I can stand on my own two feet without some deity holding my hand to know right from wrong. We'll never know if society would have been better or worse without religion-- I don't get into those kind of debates-- but I do know my lack of belief never made me less moral, or less compassionate than those who have religion.

[annabanana]

3. Theirs is a small god indeed.

One that cannot withstand human nature.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

4. Amen, truth is were all in this, it, whatever it is together and in the

end it really doesn't matter. Have fun and enjoy life. Peace be with you.

[Bill McBlueState]

5. everyone's recommending but nobody's kicking!

k/r

[JerseygirlCT]

6. I think "Compassion Forum" was a bad name for it

But I also think discussing religion and religious issues is a good idea. I found it interesting to see how the two handled the questions - it was illuminating for me about their character. Like it or not, this is a country in which most people claim to be religious. We Democrats do ourselves a huge disservice by refusing to address the issues that matter to these people.

I found myself wandering during many of Clinton's answers - I do wish she could be more concise - but I found Obama often did a good job handling otherwise difficult questions - and that tells me more about the man in general than just his deftness with religious issues.

Compassion is most certainly NOT a strictly religious trait. And of course, many people professing one religion or another act in anything but compassionate ways. But I really think our job as Democrats is to talk to everyone about how our beliefs mesh with their own. The ability to speak to widely differing people, find the common ground and work toward persuading them to our way of seeing things is a very good, and very needed skill.

In short, I'm less interested in the details of the candidate's personal beliefs, but very interested in the results of that belief, and very interested in his/her skill in speaking to people of faith -without pandering- about the things that we Democrats hold dear.

[davekriss]

7. In Defense of Religion: It Has Its Place

What follows is something I posted in 2004 on Urban75 in response to someone who "exhibited zeal and conscientious devotion" in his mission to tear down the legitimacy of any religious belief. FWIW, I repeat here:

Just as Chomsky says there is a "language organ" in the brain, I think there is also a "spiritual organ" -- i.e., we are perhaps preprogrammed by countless generations of natural selection to pursue spiritual "truth", "salvation", "peace", and "meaning". To deny that pursuit with "zeal or conscientious devotion" is equally an expression of that preprogrammed given in our natures, albeit in disguised form.

Joseph Campbell describes 4 major cultural functions for religion (IIRC): (i) to engender sustaining and grounding "mystical" experience in a few (the founding roots of religions), (ii) to provide order and meaning that allows a political/economic system to flourish, (iii) to establish and justify a ruling priestly class that benefits a few and maintains the general order, (iv) to function as a screening myth that keeps system-contrarian truths from the minds of the non-privileged classes. There is nothing wrong with item one; it all goes downhill with the latter three. That preprogrammed pursuit of the spiritual gets hijacked again and again for sociopolitical purposes that maintain, sustain, and benefit selfish hierarchy -- and at complete variance (usually) from the "mystical" experiences that served to found the religious order in the first place -- steers us into discussions of our natures that spill far beyond just the "religious" in us.

Having said that, my wife (Kriss) is a devout Christian. I can say unequivocally that her church (a small charismatic church) is filled with men and women of good spirit who turn to Sundays for nourishment, comfort, and community. The values and ideals upheld are positive and healing. During the rest of the week some do much community work to alleviate the suffering of others. In and of itself there is nothing negative with this at all; on the contrary, this is a beautiful thing.

If I can wax metaphorically here I think there are levels to consciousness, spheres turning slowly within spheres. Up above are the spheres of transpersonal experience (mystical, spiritual, revelatory). Down below are the spheres of the wounded child, the detritus of our tragic personal histories. In between are the spheres of the everyday self that balances the checkbook and clocks in at work. A retreat into any one at the cost of the others is disorder, disease.

The transpersonal in flight from the weight of the everyday or acknowledgement of our woundings can lead to imbalance and fanaticism; a retreat below can lead to depression, emotional chaos, continuance and increase of pain. And a retreat into the everyday in denial of the above/below can lead to ennui, emptiness, and meaninglessness. What's called for, and the words of the many spiritual leaders across time have called for this, is balance and integration of all spheres.

To the extent that religion orders and integrates it can be tolerated (by me). I understand that many of us are strong enough to stand alone, separate from the ordering community of religions (Tillich's the courage to stand apart vs. the courage to participate, two poles of the courage to be in a world where God can seem very absent -- the many of us fall at various points along this valid continuum). But I am also fully aware how the sensitive spheres can be hijacked for banal (even evil) purposes. And I am aware how the screening myths of religions can distract from and postpone the fight for corrective social justice and equality. On this contradiction I don't pretend to have answers, but unlike some I neither embrace naively nor reject wholly the fundamental drives that lead men and women to bond together in intended good will under the banners of various religions.

But, hey, that's just me <---- lost in Samsarra, swimming in our Ocean of Tears...

[varkam]

8. I am not saying that religion does not have or serve a purpose eom

[ikojo]

9. One of my dearest friends puts it like this

(yes, she's an atheist)...she does good because it's the right thing to do not out of fear of what will happen to her after she dies.