I never read more than excerpts from the books of the late Christopher Hitchens. I've read many of his essays and followed some of his debates against theists. A funny guy. A great mind. A powerful spokesperson for atheism.
Having said that, one of his books in particular caught my attention and has always been on my "books to read" list. Somehow I've just never gotten around to doing it. I think I already have a pretty good idea of his position on this matter. Probably I would agree with much of what he wrote there.
But that title: God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Wow. Stamp it out everyone, it is the great bane of humanity!
If somehow religion could be killed off like a poisonous weed, then everything would be fine. Correct?
Interestingly, in the United Kingdom this book was released under the title: God Is Not Great: The Case Against Religion. I wonder why that is the case. I think I know.
If I were forced to choose but one noun to describe the deadly poison of human existence, it would be this one: inhumanity.
A religion or philosophy that effectively combats that is the antidote.
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Softening the title may win many more readers but on the other hand, some readers may not pick it up. Marketing is a funny thing -- we all prefer different approaches.
Different voices, getting out the same message can be useful. Sometimes, to fight the cultural default bias that without religion we would be immoral, loud voices have been helpful even at the cost of rhetorical hyperbole.
But some don't like this consequential logic -- ohh, that brings me to today's post on ethics! Smile. (boy, was that slimy, or what?)
Thanks for the info Doug -- I hadn't heard about the change in title which was probably a wise move and probably more helpful for a larger number of people.
"If somehow religion could be killed off like a poisonous weed, then everything would be fine. Correct?"
Unfortunate title. Even poison ivy doesn't poison everything.
Plus, you gotta remember, you have a somewhat different definition of religion than the religion indicated in the title. Words are important. We need to be using it with the same meaning to dialogue effectively.
@ Sabio,
Not slimey at all. I'm happy to share the mutual readers we have. I will be reading your new post shortly.
Really, I'm not so concerned about the title but rather if it represents the author's true feelings.
It seems to me to be way too sweeping of an indictment.
"If I were forced to choose but one noun to describe the deadly poison of human existence, it would be this one: inhumanity."
I can heartily agree with this.
@ Exrelayman,
Now had the sub-title had been "how fundamentalist religion poisions everything" I probably would have agreed.
I don't think I have a particularly novel interpretation of religion. I do think religion can be safely and beneficially separated from faith and supernaturalism, however. "Spirituality" has it's problems, too, as you have pointed out. Idealism? That has more than one definition.
And if Hitchens were to discuss religion as 'trying to become nicer' I don't see him disagreeing with you. But that's not what most people (or Hitchens) mean when they speak of religion. So here we apparently must differ, as I think your interpretation of religion is pretty novel.
@ Exrelayman,
I suppose I could be sarcastic at this point and simply ask for your definition of religion or what you think THE definition of religion is since you obviously have a problem with mine. However, that isn't my style.
So you think my definition of religion is "pretty novel"?
I've pointed out - oh, I don't know how many times - on my blog that my basic philosophy or worldview or religious philosophy or however you want to characterize it is formed of two strands: one is humanism, and the other is something akin to Einstein's cosmic religious feeling, or a deep awe of the stunning comprehensibility of the universe.
Both of those concepts predate me by quite awhile, so I don't think the novel definition of religion charge against me is valid.
The noted historian of religion J. Z. Smith has suggested:
“...while there is a staggering amount of data, phenomena, of human experiences and expressions that might be characterized in one culture or another, by one criterion or another, as religion — there is no data for religion. Religion is solely the creation of the scholar’s study. It is created for the scholar’s analytic purposes by his imaginative acts of comparison and generalization. Religion has no existence apart from the academy.”
Perhaps that is true.
Nevertheless, my sentiments, as I've stated before, are fairly well represented by the first Humanist Manifesto (of 1933), when it stated:
"There is great danger of a final, and we believe fatal, identification of the word religion with doctrines and methods which have lost their significance and which are powerless to solve the problem of human living in the Twentieth Century. Religions have always been means for realizing the highest values of life. Their end has been accomplished through the interpretation of the total environing situation (theology or world view), the sense of values resulting therefrom (goal or ideal), and the technique (cult), established for realizing the satisfactory life. A change in any of these factors results in alteration of the outward forms of religion. This fact explains the changefulness of religions through the centuries. But through all changes religion itself remains constant in its quest for abiding values, an inseparable feature of human life."
"Religions have always been means for realizing the highest values of life. "
I think that definition is merely the embodiment of German Romanticism in trying to prescribe what religion is and ignores lots of anthropological information.
But like you Doug B, I don't care how people define any word -- until we try to communicate.
@ Sabio,
German Romanticism, eh? What about that. And it so happens that I am indeed of German descent on my father's side of the family.
But, okay, I will ask if you want to take a crack at defining the word religion.
This is an important article by an anthropologist I enjoy:
http://genealogyreligion.net/disrupting-inventing-religion
Here one of my links where I fumbled around:
http://triangulations.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/religious-syndrome-creating-a-model/
@ Sabio,
Thanks for those links. I did read them.
I think you were closer to the truth when you wrote that “'religion' is vague and used in many different ways ... so vague as to essentially be meaningless when examined carefully."
However, in the vulgate - which is how I write my blogs - religious people tend to think of themselves as righteous or right-acting people. Most of us wouldn't get bogged down in the etymological gyrations you and Exrelayman are going though over a very simply put thought by yours truly.
" Most of us wouldn't get bogged down in the etymological gyrations you and Exrelayman are going."
I won't bother you with 'gyrations' and leave you to your self-contentness.
@ Sabio,
Yes, poor me. Sorry to be so indifferent to the "light" you have attempted to show me. :)
WE are going through etymological gyrations!? There is an affection between us which I do not wish to endanger by getting sarcastic, but religion, the essence of which is 'trying to become nicer', per you, is not the same idea as:
http://onelook.com/?w=religion&ls=a
It does seem to me that I have tried to speak nicely (see your definition of religion), but when I point out that Hitchens is not talking about the same thing as you with the word religion, you come up with me doing 'etymological gyrations'. I am trying to look to myself and how I am reacting to criticism and expressing difference of opinion. I would for like you to contemplate how you are doing the same.
Please just see if you can think about this without ego defense taking over (which of course I also have work on). I enjoy you and and am speaking this as a friend. I hope you can hear it as a friend.
@ Exrelayman,
Rest assured that you are at no risk of endangering of our mutual affection by disagreeing with me. (For that matter neither is Sabio Lantz, nor anyone who comments to disagree.)
It seems to me that trying to come up with a single definition of the word religion is an impossible task. That is because according to popular usage it has multiple shades of meaning.
I gave an explanation of what religion means to me, and it is not, as you suggested, "pretty novel." In fact, in looking through the various dictionary links (I haven't yet studied all of them) contained in the onelook.com link you sent in your latest comment, I find my usage repeatedly listed as an alternative.
Even according to Hitchens' definition, which I assume is similar to the one you wish to uphold, it is still hard for me think that belief in a supernatural deity is a poison and that ruins everything. Even you seemed to agree with that in an earlier comment.
My position is that religion is a subject of more worthy treatment than atheists like Hitchens and Dawkins prefer to give it. And to deny that those of us who follow a nontheistic religion or spiritual philosophy should be included in the discussion is presumptuous to the max.
Correct me if I'm mistaken here but you seem to be trying to make the case that my use of religion is invalid. I disagree and have told you why. What am I missing? I don't disagree with your usage of religion, just that it is the only valid usage.
Not trying to say your use of the word religion is invalid. Saying that for most (not all) people religion entails a god or gods, and that your use of it the less popular way (3rd or 4th option in dictionaries) to be critical of some one using it in the more popular way (1st and 2nd options) is invalid argumentation, simply because you are not talking about the same thing.
I marvel in and experience an awe and reverence for the natural world. It is my church. I just don't see anything supernatural there. This is not to be argumentative, just to clarify for you any misunderstanding that my poem may have given. Yep, daggone fundamentalist atheist I guess! (grin)
I think we are at an impasse as to whether your usage is novel or not. Doesn't hurt our friendship.
'Any more verses to this song would be anticlimactic' - Brothers Four. Best wishes and enjoy your day.
@ Exrelayman,
Thanks for the clarification. I agree; I think we've pretty much squeezed the juice out of this lemon - except that I would remind you that the stated point of my post was that in my opinion the practice of inhumanity, rather than religion (however one chooses to define it), is the real poision.
Two issues in this thread:
(a) Rhetoric
I think it is import to understand the informal fallacies we use in our rhetoric.
(i) using the words "gyrations" implies that the material is deceptive or convoluted or the efforts are frivilous or some such things. It does not address the discussion.
(ii) using "bogged down" was also an attack without substance.
(iii) Then sarcasm saying:
"poor me"
"the light you have attempt to show me"
Are hidden ad hominem like:
"You think you are so smart"
"You look down on other people".
These type of moves is what ExRelayman was addressing but to which you did not respond. And no need for you to respond, but I wanted to illustrate them.
(b)Religion
You are being a prescriptionist -- telling us, in your previous post, what "religion" is. You tell us that you think the "essence" of Religion = "Don't be yourself-be someone a little nicer."
That flies in the face of many different ways the average person uses that word -- in politics, in exclusive relationships, in homosexuality and much more. Which you know very well and post on often.
So, it seems like you are saying, "Look, this is the way I want the word "religion" to be used."
Then here you say, ""Religions have always been means for realizing the highest values of life. "
Again, that is anthropologically and socially a false statement. Again you are being a prescriptionist tell us the romantic images you wish to attach with the word. Then you would have to say that any religious person or atheist doing otherwise is just wrong because you have already figured out the "essence" of religion.
If you just want people visiting here to agree with you, I get that. Using your rhetoric is one way to assure that. I think the points I have layed forth are non-trivial, not snobby, not gyrations, not pseudo-intellectual and have real implications for the common person.
Karen Armstrong and many others have tried to tell us what the "essence" of religion is. I think they are being prescriptionists too -- without admitting it. So you are in good company in that sense.
Sabio,
Thanks for taking the time to point out exactly what bothered you about my post.
If my frustration (not anger or contempt) showed a bit when I accused you and Exrelayman of using "gyrations" it is only because in my opinion (which again is just the way I took it) you guys are missing the points of my posts and instead focusing on a side issue, how religion should be understood. How religion is understood by the majority or how it should properly be understood was not the point of either of my posts.
Thus I don't think and I certainly did intend the use of "bogged down" to be an attack. That suggestion seems to me to be an overreaction on your part. I think our dialogue stalled over the point of the correct definition of religion.
As for my "sarcasm" - which, by the way, was presented with a smiley - I don't think it was out of line in response to your description of my self-contentness (as if I should be more satisfied adopting your self-contentness). So you think I attacked you (ad hominem) with a smile?
You then tell me I am being a prescriptionist for "telling us, in [my] previous post, what 'religion' is." But that isn't what I did. I told my readers what the essence of religion is for me. Read it again.
You say that "flies in the face of many different ways the average person uses that word." No, I think it is included in or at least consistent with the way most modern people use the word. Even a religious source like the Christian's New Testament contains this thought: "Pure religion and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world (James 1:27)." So if I am mistaken in this, there is certainly a long tradition for it!
Now strictly speaking, it wasn't me that said "Religions have always been means for realizing the highest values of life." I was quoting from Humanist Manifesto 1. I don't consider that any sort of an anthropological statement and certainly I disagree strongly that it is a 'socially false" one. It was just intended to tap into the general understanding that religion in the popular mind is wedded to the concept of right action.
Now I don't mind disagreements at all. In fact, you and Exrelayman seemed more or less okay with my post until he suggested my interpretation of religion was "pretty novel." To which I disagreed and still do disagree. Of course from an academic standpoint religion must include more than just the Golden Rule or being nice. But wouldn't you agree that most of the major religions of our day have fairly well-defined moral codes? My concept isn't new at all. The Great Commandment of the Jewish religion was to love God above all and to love one's neighbor as himself. You guys took issue with my taking the good behavior part and leaving behind a personal God and supernaturalism out of my personal religious outlook. But that is my prerogative. In no way was I prescribing onto others how they must understand religion. You see, I never got into the business of trying to produce an all-encompassing summation of religion. I merely said that for me - that is for Doug B, the way I look at life - being kind is the essence of religion.
What is more, in this post we are commenting on I wasn't even discussing Hitchens' understanding of religion at all. What I did was disagree that religion poisons everything and suggested that the practice of inhumanity is the true poison. I can't fathom that merely believing in supernatural religion or a supernatural God results in evil, and obviously good often comes from it.
I live in this "in between world" of agreeing with Hitchens that religion poisons everything while another part of me sees that for many it is not a poison. In between hurts.
@ Zoe,
Well, I was once religious in a traditional sense of the concept. Even then I like to think I was a kind-hearted person. But the truth is, strict adherence to my religious tradition instilled in me something of an unkind spirit towards those who were "lost" to what I thought was THE TRUTH. Enemies of my God where therefore enemies of mine. This evil may have been subtle, but I now recognize it as an evil. However, I am aware that there are many people who are better than their religions, who are somewhat ignorant of the big world outside their narrow worldview. My own mother springs quickly to mind here. I don't think her religion or desire to do the right thing is the problem. I think it is an inability to see the narrowness.
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