Larry's Take on Organized Religion in the USA

Where am I coming from? As a Freethinker, I consciously choose what to believe, and what not to believe. For example, I believe in reincarnation.

I'm not completely sure why. However I do feel a moral obligation to tell the truth if a friend asks what I believe. I'm definitely not willing to die for my belief. :-) And if other people don't share my belief in reincarnation, I do not have a problem with that.

I try to avoid being overly cynical about religion. The experience of an acquaintance serves as a cautionary tale. Many years ago, he looked upon all religions with a jaundiced eye, and enjoyed telling generic jokes about religion. Then one fine day, he got religion. One side-effect of his conversion to Fundamentalist Christianity was the loss of his wonderful sense of humor. And it took him a long time to recover it.

I try to learn from my own experiences, and from the experiences of others. Overnight swings in worldview are not my cup of tea. As a rational and nonreligious person, I try to look at religion objectively, to see the good, as well as the not-so-good.

When I was a child, I had an epiphany about organized religion. Although my late father came from a Jewish background, he was nonreligious. My late mother came from a Christian family.

They both believed that their marriage was more important than squabbling about religion. She encouraged me to go to Sunday School, but there was a catch.

Yes, I enjoyed listening to Bible stories. On Sunday School mornings, I'd wolf down some corn flakes, and then my mother would drive me to Sunday School. However if I didn't go to Sunday School, she would wait until my hard-working father woke up, and then we'd all have pancakes! Which is more important to a small child: church or pancakes?

From my outsider's perspective, organized religion has three things going for it.

1. It can give hope for people in hopeless situations.

2. Religion has the potential to inspire people to live more ethical lives.

3. Membership in some particular church can give one an instant sense of community--even for people with marginal social skills, who move to another part of the country for health or job related reasons.

In theocracies, governments play an active role in promoting the ethical standards set forth in their religious teachings. Often their religiously motivated laws go well beyond the minimum necessary for a smoothly functioning society.

In contrast, I strongly support the right to freedom of religion, which is explicitly guaranteed by the First Amendment of the US Constitution:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...."

Some Social Conservatives pooh-pooh the First Amendment, and assert that the US was based upon Christianity. However that claim is inaccurate.

Yes, many of the early European settlers in what is now the US were Christians. Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli (1796) is very clear about the intentions of the Founding Fathers with respect to the separation of church and state:

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

There's an interesting unintended consequence to freedom of religion: It injects a free-market mechanism into the equation. If you're dissatisfied with the teachings (or personalities) in Church A, you are free to leave it, and to move on to Church B. Or to no church at all.

In order to be successful in the US, a church must continuously market itself to its members, and to potential members. Successful US churches pursue one or more of the following objectives:

A. to convey feel-good messages;

B. to examine current moral issues in the light of religious teachings;

C. and sometimes to motivate the minority of slackers in the congregation, with fire-and-brimstone imagery.

Point C raises the question: Is it really a good idea to base moral education on putative carrots and sticks in the afterlife? After all, less than 5% of our adult population are sociopaths, who have no conscience whatsoever. And no amount of preaching can develop a conscience in a sociopath.

On the other hand, the vast majority of religious and non-religious Americans do have some sense of right, wrong, and fairness. It is possible to build upon a preexisting moral sense. My concern is that some religious folks may take the myopic view that if a contemplated action is not specifically proscribed by the Ten Commandments, then it's fair game from a moral perspective. In my opinion, the Point B approach is more productive than the Point C approach.

Anyway, successful free-market churches and church franchises must cater to the sensibilities of their constituents. At the same time, they must avoid the appearance of pandering, in order to minimize the image of wimpdom. A reasonable compromise: Tell people what they want to hear--or what they expect to hear--90% of the time. And 10% of the time, take what appear to be principled positions, with which most of one's customers mildly disagree. A similar formula applies to politics.

It's also good for business to devote resources to legitimate charitable works. For example, some churches are very supportive of Alcoholics Anonymous. Some recovering alcoholics are turned off by the 'higher power' aspect of the Twelve Steps, but they are free to switch to Rational Recovery if they choose. As an outsider, I think that the emotional support in AA can be somewhat helpful for spiritually inclined members.

We'd like to believe that religion--even in a free market--brings out the best in people. Unfortunately that's not always true. Take the Westboro Baptist Church. One of the tenets in the teachings of its pastor, Fred Phelps is--and I quote--"God hates fags."

Phelps is absolutely consistent in his homophobia. His followers picket military funerals, because the armed forces are considered to be too tolerant of homosexuality. For the same reason, Phelps has made extreme statements, which could easily be interpreted as violent threats, against the king of Sweden. (Swedes tend to have a pragmatic, live-and-let-live outlook.)

Phelps has also said some nice things about Saddam Hussein, who was tolerant of the Christian views of his deputy prime minister, Teriq Aziz, and other Assyrian Christyians. Does that mitigate the fact that Saddam was a mass-murderer? Not in my book.

From a business perspective, Phelps has been somewhat successful in exploiting a niche market for his extreme, religiously-based brand of homophobia. That's quite a contrast with the nice religious folks who support AA.

Yes, I'm very disturbed by Fred Phelps' hate-mongering in the name of religion. However as a rational person, I understand that Phelps' ministry is an unfortunate side-effect of free-market economics in the religious sphere. There's a kernel of truth in the old Libertarian saying: Free speech is offensive speech.

Come to think of it, there's also a multi-level marketing business model embedded within the doctrines of some Protestant denominations. Even if your life is less than exemplary, you can still accrue salvation credits in your cosmic bank account, by proselytizing on street corners, and 'saving the souls' of others. After you throw off the mortal coil, that may tip the scales in your favor, and help you avoid going to 'that other place'.

The long-term success of any religion is partly determined by its main precepts, which are an inescapable part of its business model. Another example: A religion, which encourages parents to have large numbers of children, has the potential to out-breed the competition. Fortunately for the planet, fertility cults tend to have high defection rates in countries like the US, which are long past the hump of the Demographic Transition, and which have traditions of religious freedom.

A word of advise for religious entrepreneurs: In light of Rev. Camping's fizzled Bible prophesies of 1994 and 2011, don't get too specific in your end-of-the-world predictions. Better still, don't make falsifiable claims of any kind.

Some Christians believe that because of a Fundamentalist interpretation of the Garden of Eden story, people are basically evil. This is called Original Sin. Here's the Fundamentalist escape clause: unless you accept JC as your personal savior. Then you can lead a virtuous life, and avoid the fire and brimstone in the Afterlife. From my perspective, fear is not the world's best marketing strategy.

Anyway, it'd be fun to do a statistical study of crime rates among self-reported Christians in the US, as compared with those of self-reported non-Christians having comparable demographics. Until some good empirical evidence surfaces, I'm going with the Null Hypothesis.

Many non-religious folks believe that human nature is a mixed bag, and that with skilled parenting, most people turn out to be more good than bad. There's a large, partially-overlapping range of "none of the above" worldviews: Agnostics, Atheists, Brights, Freethinkers, Humanists, and Skeptics.

Humanists believe that Humanity is capable of solving its own problems--with or without Divine intervention. Atheism is a fairly nuanced concept.

The old Soviet Union promoted hard-core Atheism: the doctrine that God definitely does not exist, which is an article of faith in its own right. However where I live in Northern California, most of my Atheist acquaintances are Agnostic Atheists, who believe that God probably does not exist. Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins (pictured above) has written extensively on the theme of Atheism.

For whatever it's worth, Unitarian Universalists are respectful of non-traditional worldviews, and nonreligious folks are readily accepted within the Unitarian community. If I were a parent, I'd give serious consideration to becoming a UU, because of the wholesome atmosphere.

The religious views of individuals are worthy of respect, provided that the respect is reciprocated. But what about organized religion? Taken as a whole, market-based religion is a mixed bag. If you're shopping for a religion, be prepared to do your homework. Seek out a religion that promotes the dictum from the film, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure: Be excellent to each other!

Copyright 2011 and 2012 by Larry Fields