Only birds of a feather?
I’m reading Sam Harris’s The End of Faith these days–a book I’d like to review here in coming weeks, once I’m through. It’s very quotable. He’s more caustic than I’d want to be were I to broach his subject, but I think he has some very important things to say. He thinks there’s no way to avoid escalating violence in our world except for religion to die. He thinks religion divides people irreconcilably, and makes rational discourse impossible, since faith, as he sees it defined by the majority in every religious tradition, is belief that things about God and our world are true without needing evidence to prove it. Without evidence available to discuss the truth or untruth of a claim, and indeed, in a climate where criticizing or critiquing one another’s faith is taboo, how can we navigate life together? How can we not stay divided if each of us believes deeply something fundamentally different about God (as one example) which isn’t open to rational, evidentiary discourse?
I’m not sure if you got all that, but what I’m wondering a lot these days is whether he’s right. One of the greatest tragedies I know, and by know I mean experientially, is the way religious beliefs divide people who otherwise have so much in common. There are so many things that all of us, across the board of religions and cultures, share in being human–fears that we have, hopes, longings, worries about jobs or kids or finances, losses, illnesses, joys, experiences of redemption. We have a wealth of things in common. And yet it seems to me that religion becomes a kind of gatekeeper for any of this to get realized. If I’m not one of your flock, the gateway of meaningful relationship gets swung shut. And vice versa. The gate becomes what determines whether or not we can be comfortable together, whether or not we can explore the geographies inside of us to discover common ground. Indeed, it can become a source of bitterness and condescension and rivalry and distrust. It causes violence.
Do you think this is true? Is intimacy and respect, of the kind for which I imagine all of us ultimately long, possible between people when one or both are religiously devoted, but not to the same religion? Maybe the taboos against critiquing faith are really about trying to keep that gatekeeper sleepy, trying to find ways to slip past an otherwise wall to find ourselves together, at ease, in love.
October 2nd, 2006 at 5:10 am
yet in the case of co-workers with whom we have so many differences- personality, work-style, work ethic, culture–the belief in a higher being can also bring us together…i think we can still be open to each other’s deep beliefs about God and redemption and end of life…and it doesn’t have to be divisive. We can choose to make it divisive, but it does not have to be so. It’s the things we can’t prove that we know are true that make us so RICH as people…wrapped around childhood hopes, life’s crises, strange dreams …but i see what he is trying to say….thought-provoking, too much so on this early monday morning!
October 2nd, 2006 at 12:14 pm
I will be interested to hear more of what you think of Harris’ book, Kristin! Very thought-provoking. I have been pondering similar things lately; one thought that has kept coming to me, is that all of the world’s major religions are like old tribes. They each want to have the right to define/describe “reality:” they each think they are right, that the others don’t have as complete a view of God/truth as they do, and they are all concerned to convince others of their rightness. From a sociological point of view, I wonder: is this just an out-dated form of social cohesion, useful for creating group identity, but increasingly not useful and even dangerous? All of our major religions originated during more tribal forms of culture, and I think they are creating tension because while they offer much truth about the human condition, they also come in a package that is VERY outdated. We can’t afford to maintain tribal ways of relating; this will only escalate violence. What do you think?
October 2nd, 2006 at 12:21 pm
Atticus, I think you’re probably right. I wonder, though, whether the differences between certain religions (or subsets within one) are so great, and so fervently held by some, that the openness you talk about is almost impossible, at least not in our heart of hearts. As much as I respect *people*, I find it impossible to be open to the possibility that some of their beliefs about God or the afterlife could be true. If I’m honest, I’m actually deeply offended by some of these beliefs. If I try to forget that they believe them, and focus on other things we have in common, I can live in the respect and appreciation I have for them as people. But as soon as I dwell in awareness of these beliefs, I feel angry, or sad, or like a huge chasm exists between us.
I don’t know what to do about this. I’d love to hear what others think.
October 2nd, 2006 at 12:34 pm
Lori, yes! I think you’re right on. The problem is that taking such a distanced perspective doesn’t seem possible unless you aren’t really part of any tribe. Am I wrong on this? Being part of a tribe has a lot of advantages, and the pressures to stay in the fold are strong. Leaving a tribe, or switching tribes, or saying the whole tribal system is doing us harm: these can have very violent consequences. Which I think is what Harris is talking about, and also why he always has to have body guards when he presents in public, and why he isn’t altogether open about where he lives/studies. I’m thinking there’s probably a need for two whole forums of discussion–one by people who can and/or want to take the distanced perspective that you seem to have in your comments, and one by people within tribes, who recognize that they can’t and/or don’t want to leave, but who want to talk about what it means that our world is so full of religious violence. Conversation across this divide also seems so important, but seems like an inherent kind of stalemate, too, at least in the short run, since the “solutions” each side would brainstorm would probably not fly with the other. I don’t know. I’m thinking out loud here. I’d love to hear what you think.
October 2nd, 2006 at 1:07 pm
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October 3rd, 2006 at 5:14 pm
>Do you think this is true? Is intimacy and respect, of the kind for which I imagine all of us ultimately long, possible between people when one or both are religiously devoted, but not to the same religion?
I hope so. It’s hard to even imagine very many examples of this in real life, but I hope so.
October 3rd, 2006 at 7:32 pm
I like your post and the comments (aside from the hit-and-run which is such a great example of the problem you’re talking about–the inability and unwillingness to have a two-way dialogue). I too wouldn’t necessarily talk like Harris. However, he has convinced me that it is okay, and actually critical for the survival of the world, to break through the social taboo against talking about other people’s religions.
I think it is fine, for example, for people to believe that there is a God who all-knowingly and all-powerfully created people, the world, heaven and hell, etc., and that that God will send people to burn in hell for eternity if they don’t do x, y, and z. However, it is not okay to call that love. It is not love. Defining that set of actions as love can and does lead to various forms of violence.
Likewise, I think it is fine to believe in a God who has values that differ from some of the societies in the world. It is fine to try to live out the values of the God one believes in, so long as it doesn’t harm other people. However, it is not okay to harm and/or kill people in the name of one’s God.
In short, my point is that I don’t feel the need, nor do I have the right, to tell people what they should believe. I accept the fact that we live in different tribes when it comes to both religious and non-religious worldviews. I can live with that. What I can no longer accept, however, is when people harm others physically and/or psychologically as a result of a personally-held faith system.
October 3rd, 2006 at 10:08 pm
>>> Do you think this is true? Is intimacy and respect, of the kind for which I imagine all of us ultimately long, possible between people when one or both are religiously devoted, but not to the same religion?
October 4th, 2006 at 7:38 am
i find sam harris very compelling, though i’m not sure all of his points are that convincing or completed quite yet. it seems to me that connection IS possible between all kinds of people, no matter what anyone believes, but that that connection is harder to come by when our conversation is centered around religion. i’ve been dear friends with serious christian fundamentalists but there’s no doubt in my mind that our friendship would not stand the test if religion was our primary subject.
i have to say that his points about the problem of tolerance really grab me–though i don’t know how much good it would do ultimately to disown the more extreme factions of a particular faith. doesn’t that just give the radical one more reason to keep fighting?
October 11th, 2006 at 8:50 pm
The problem is far greater than religion itself, I think. I haven’t read this book, but will make it a point to do so. People approach life through their perceptions, which of course are biased by religion, culture, ethnicity, etc. It’s not just religion that makes us different. Harris’s theory is like a theory of a priest friend of mine in the 1960s–there will always be ethnic prejudice until–we have so inner-bred that we are all the same color, with the same features. That would take a very long time. The older I get, the more I am aware that wherever two or more are gathered there will be love, but there will also be hate. It’s the nature of being human.
October 14th, 2006 at 2:48 pm
Fran, I think you’re really right. The problem isn’t just religion. Hate and its lesser versions are such human things. It does seem true at the same time that certain differences are cause for more violence than others. If Harris is at all right, religious beliefs could lead to the end of our world. That makes me want to read on…