It's a sentiment that crops up with some
regularity in religious discourse. Sometimes it's expressed obliquely as a
suggestion that we should all respect each other's beliefs. Other times it's delivered is a demand: 'I respect your beliefs so
you should respect mine!' But in all cases, my reply is the one
every groom and bride dreads: 'I don't.' With the betrothed, those words
understandably arouse feelings of disorientation, alienation, even betrayal. But similar
feelings are often evident in the reaction of those theists whose beliefs I decline to respect.
It might be implied I've broken some unspoken social contract
that demands my reciprocation. It might be insinuated that
I'm being gratuitously mean. It's even been put to me that it's my kind
of attitude that causes wars. But is any of that true? I want to unpack
some of the tangled-up dynamics going on here. I'll be exploring four kinds of
emotional blackmail designed to elicit undeserved respect from others, and
looking at why declarations of respect from theists might be problematic for them. I'll then
be setting out why I don't respect beliefs, explaining why religious beliefs — far
from deserving privileged immunity — are among the most deserving of scrutiny
and criticism, and addressing a last-ditch defence often offered that, even if it's false, religion should
be left alone because it performs a positive social function. One of the things the atheist satirist and critic H. L. Mencken got wrong was his assertion that we must respect
the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent
that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart. We don't need to
respect the other fellow's religion at all. Mencken muddies the waters by blurring
together items from very distinct categories. The theory that your wife is beautiful
is an aesthetic judgment. Even if you phrase that judgment
so it sounds like a truth claim — ie 'She's beautiful.' — you and I both know — don't we? — that this is just shorthand for 'She's
beautiful to me.' I have no reason to respond to this
statement. I'm not implicated by in any way. That only comes if you go a step further
and say, 'She's beautiful isn't she?' — in which case, prepare yourself for an
honest answer. Religion, on the other hand, is in the business of asserting facts
about existence. That does implicate me — irretrievably — and it requires my
response. If your reasons for asserting these facts stand up to scrutiny, I have some rethinking to do. If they're
based on unsubstantiated phenomena and fallacious arguments, I don't. Oddly, mirroring the way aesthetic
judgments get phrased like truth claims, religious truth claims frequently get
phrased like aesthetic judgments. We often hear it said of some god, 'He's
real to me.' In many cases this is simply to forestall any possible challenge, translating to: 'He's real to me, no matter
what you say!' But in other cases, this strangely personalised reality
claim offers an implicit bargain: 'If you let me make my truth claims
unchallenged, I'll let you make yours.' It attempts to establish sympathetic
interests between both parties. It says, 'Hey, we can both come out winners
here if we agree to look the other way while we both do something very bad — epistemologically.' Other folks take a
more psychologically hard-line approach invoking a mutual obligation. Here the
message is: 'Look, I'm willing to let you make your truth claims unchallenged, so you should let me make mine!' But
reality can't be bargained with in this way. The earth isn't a flat disk for you and a
globe for me just because we make some wishful pact. If you're claiming that any gods exist
then you're making a truth claim about a reality of which I'm a part — and it's your burden to substantiate it. Some folks have no such
squeamishness about proclaiming the universal truth of their religion, and adopt an openly threatening, violent approach to inspire fear among critics —
especially satirical critics. The need to be able to subject beliefs
to ridicule is not a trivial one. It's a very important one,
and becomes more obvious the greater the power and influence involved. When a person or group assumes a
position of power, their reaction to ridicule can tell us a
lot about their robustness and their humanity. We might expect to see a range of responses from amusement to anger. But when the
responses tip over into violence and persecution, that's where we see the warning signs
of dictatorships — autocracies headed by brittle narcissists,
prone to self-mythologising. Ridicule is especially threatening to
these folks. Not only does a prick their inflated self-image, it also reduces their capacity to inspire
adulation and fear among the masses. No authority is beyond ridicule. No politician. No priest. No prophet. No parent. Because that's what theism comes
down to in the end, isn't it. Our simultaneous longing for and fear of the magical, mystical, unquestionable parent. When we were infants, our parents or
guardians were our protectors and our punishers and this inspired two irreconcilable
responses in us: love and fear. In healthy relationships, where parents'
actions were grounded in love, we begin to appreciate their
punishments in that context. We see why our parents snatched our hand away
from the fire; why they berated us for walking away with that nice
grown-up in the park. Consequently, the fear response is
resolved and recedes. But in unhealthy relationships, where
parents' actions are grounded in power, leading to erratic, overblown and
blatantly unjust punishments, the fear can endure — sometimes at the
expense of love — and we remain infantilised, afraid to challenge a corrupt authority.
Which end of the spectrum would you put a parent who threatens to burn its
children for declining to worship it? Of all the authorities we need to be
prepared to question, to resist, to ridicule, the most urgent cases are
the ones that threaten violence when questioned, resisted, or ridiculed. The fourth manipulative strategy attempts to silence challenge by
appealing to guilt. Here, the message is: 'My beliefs give me comfort —
can't you just leave them alone?' There are times in life when
circumstances run us into the ground. Numbly waiting for a phone call about a
child who's been missing for days. Or dreading lonely evenings after a divorce. Or sitting at a loved one's hospital bedside
watching them slip away from us. In these situations, we might find
comfort in many things. A hug. A chat with a friend.
A piece of music. A drive to the coast. The opportunity to escape for a day, an hour, even a handful of minutes
— to lay our burden down and let in some comfort — can be
invaluable in refilling our depleted reserves, and keeping us going. And many of us
would do whatever we could to facilitate that comfort for others.
But what if a loved one risked his health by diving into relentless unprotected
sex with strangers to drown out the pain of divorce?
What if a loved one started handing over her savings to a con artist to commune with a dead relative? Would we
be so quick to facilitate these comforts? What about the knock-on effect on others? If parents take comfort in fantasies of an afterlife to avoid dealing with death, what will
their children be taught? Will they get the chance to face death honestly? or will they now be forced to collude
with their parents' denial? Without afterlife fantasies, would parents be
so quick to deny their children life-saving medical treatment on religious grounds? What about suicide attackers who anticipate a glorious martyr's reward
for their deeds? Afterlife fantasies are not harmless or
neutral. They're multivalent: susceptible to a wide
variety of applications. The desire for comfort can lead to
destructive and deadly behaviors as well as states of perpetual denial
which are frequently imposed on others. Which is why I don't view comfort as
something to be automatically cherished or facilitated. And why it's often more humanitarian to
challenge comfort than to enable it. Feelings of fear, obligation, guilt and
sympathy can help us in some scenarios. Fear can
help us escape dangerous situations. Obligation can help strengthen
legitimate social contracts. But when folks try to play on these
feelings to get us to comply with unreasonable self-serving demands, that's emotional blackmail — and we need
to be clear that that's not acceptable behaviour. It's worth noting that when people tell me
they respect my beliefs, a little probing often reveals problems
with that statement. With christians, I have to put it to them
that this professed respect directly conflicts with their Bible.
First, let's consider the earthly life. In the Bible's blood-soaked old
testament, Deuteronomy chapter 13 sets out the christian god Yahweh's
punishment for worshiping other gods: the sword and the stone.
Though less saturated with sadism, the Bible's new testament, which
introduces the christians' messiah, Jesus Christ, maintains its distaste for
non-christians. In 2 John chapter 1, verses 9 to 11, christians are clearly instructed not to
receive non-christians into their houses. Even by greeting them, christians are
apparently taking part in their 'wicked work'. When we look beyond death to the
christian afterlife, the gloves come off completely. If you
don't believe in the messiah, you're condemned to eternal fiery punishment.
I put it to the christians who say they respect the beliefs of non-christians that you cannot reconcile your professed
respect with these kinds of Biblical passages. Beliefs for which your God prescribes
execution, social rejection and, ultimately, eternal
torture cannot be respectable. With muslims, similar problems arise. To them, I would be considered 'culpably ignorant' and, therefore, destined for perpetual hell-fire. Don't misunderstand me. I'm not asking
you to respect my beliefs — in a moment, I'll be explaining why
beliefs don't require respect — but I encourage you to have a serious
think about these passages. Because when your religion tells you
that non-members deserve execution, social rejection and eternal torture,
we're not just talking about disrespecting beliefs. We're talking about dehumanising people. Later on, I'll be looking at the evasions some folks offer when this begins to hit home. Every belief that gets introduced into the
public space needs to be open to criticism. If we take its validity as untouchable,
then we'll be forced to reject valid information the conflicts with it. The need to be able to criticise beliefs
becomes more obvious as the reach of those beliefs increases. The belief that Henry VIII occasionally
liked to dress up in his wife's clothes isn't going to have a huge impact on our
lives. But the belief that our government is always right would have a huge effect on how we
assess all kinds of information. Another reason already touched on is
that beliefs shape behaviour. Group C believes cancer always
results from a guilty conscience, and can only be healed by confession
and sincere repentance. Group D believes cancer
is a cluster of diseases, prompted by a range of genetic
and environmental triggers. It's clear to see these beliefs will result
in very distinct patterns of behaviour. For group C, cancer is a very
straightforward matter. Patients will be judged as bringing it
on themselves and will be urged to confess and repent. Those who die will be judged insincere.
Knowledge about cancer will not increase, nor will survival rates. For group D,
cancer is a complex phenomenon. Patients will be studied to identify
genetic and environmental triggers and, in response to the patterns that
emerge, corresponding treatment plans and preventative measures will be
developed. As studies open up new avenues of
investigation, knowledge about cancer will increase as will survival rates. 'Ah,' you might say, 'But even though group C's belief is
false, it could actually have great benefits for society.' 'If group C believes guilty consciences cause cancer, surely,' you might say, 'we'd expect to see
much more moral behavior from its members.' 'After all, for them, a clear conscience
would mean a cancer-free life.' 'Isn't that a powerful motivation to treat
each other well? Group D, on the other hand, who doesn't see cancer is a moral issue,
has no such incentive.' Both groups, you might say, offer their own advantages — with group D
offering improved survival rates, but group C offering substantially
enhanced relationships across society. But what if we were to discover that, far
from leading to some moral utopia, group C's belief actively encouraged some of
the most extreme immorality we'd ever come across. Let's look at a couple of strategies that comfortably combine repeated
immorality with a clear conscience. Strategy one simply acknowledges the power of confession and repentance. According to group C's belief, it
doesn't matter what we do. Even if we invite cancer by knowingly
committing immoral acts, we'll be healed the moment we confess and
repent. Now, there is a small problem here in that, if we keep repeating the same
transgressions, the sincerity of our repentance must be
called into question. To make the strategy more viable, we need to make it more difficult to be
moral. One way of doing this is by viewing ourselves as substantially more flawed
than we really are — picturing ourelves as wretched, weak,
selfish creatures, powerless to resist all kinds of temptation.
By doing this, we can set up the idea of a noble struggle, in which we're constantly battling to
stay moral, despite overwhelming odds. This version of the strategy allows us a lot
more latitude. Here, we can plausibly repeat the same
transgressions indefinitely, while continuing to express contrition. Strategy two does away with confession and repentance altogether. In this strategy, we simply reframe
immoral behavior as moral. This can easily be achieved with a
phrase familiar to us all: 'It's for your own good.' With these five simple words, vice
becomes virtue. Bullying becomes discipline.
Rape becomes therapy. Intolerance becomes charity. Hate becomes love. We can now abuse people without the slightest small twinge. Any of this sounding familiar? Group C's belief about cancer
doesn't guarantee a better society. In fact it guarantees a lot of
destructive behaviour. After all, those who commit
immoral acts and stay cancer-free have proof of their righteousness. It
will also lead to a lot of unnecessary soul-searching by folks
who get cancer despite behaving morally. They'll be forced to identify non-existent transgressions and, of course, being human, they'll find
them. Or have them found by others. Cancer doesn't give us moral
understanding. And neither do holy scriptures that approve
so much blatantly immoral behavior that it's possible to justify acts across
the entire moral-immoral spectrum, to the extreme of genocide. A moral compass with two norths
is no compass at all. Moral systems need to be open systems
because our moral awareness advances with the discovery of new information. For example, the morality of vivisection, performed by anatomists such as Galen
and Versalius, and justified by philosophers such as Descartes, was called into question when animals,
previously viewed as insensible machines, were instead seen to be capable of
experiencing pain. Scriptures like the Bible and Qur'an are not open systems. They don't allow for new insights
which change the moral landscape. Instead, they present fixed moral
pronouncements, based on moral conjecture from centuries ago, preserving all the moral
ignorance of those times. To increase the frequency of moral behaviour
throughout the world requires that we think; that we question and reason and discuss;
that we gather good information about the needs, the benefits
and the harms involved in a given situation; and that we're willing to
review our assessments as new, relevant information emerges. Most important of all, it requires that we
reject ideologies which obstruct all of these processes by attempting to
anchor us in an ignorant past we've long outgrown, and by demanding privileged immunity
from criticism. Some theists express confusion about
why atheists have a problem with the idea of hell when we don't even believe it exists.
To those theists, I ask a simple question: 'Do I deserve eternal torture?' Those who
answer 'Yes' make my point for me. Their belief has dehumanised me to the
point that they can tell me — without shame — that they support a system
that consigns me to unending suffering. Not for committing some genocidal
atrocity. Not for harming a single person. But for the crime but not believing in
something for which I had no evidence. Those who evade my question also
illustrate my point. The first of two common evasions is:
'It's not up to me.' This is disingenuous redundancy. Folks
who respond this way know full well that's not the question I'm asking. But I'll walk them through the long version
anyway: 'I'm a non-believer.' 'According to your god, non-believers
deserve eternal torture.' 'Do you agree with your god that I
deserve eternal torture?' More often than not, I'll get exactly the
same politician's response. These folks are stuck between defending
the indefensible — hell — and questioning the unquestionable —
their god. And it's not always realistic to expect
a swift resolution to that kind of internal conflict. But for me, it's a promising sign that
there is at least some internal conflict. It shows me there's some appropriate
discomfort about this vile concept. It also means they haven't yet
rationalised the problem of hell. They haven't invested in a fallacious
justification. This leaves room to hope that their internal conflict will inspire
further private reflection. The other common evasion is:
'You send yourself to hell.' This is a very different kind of evasion. Here, the problem the hell has been rationalised, removing responsibility from the god in
question and placing it on the non-believer. This is known as blaming the victim and
it's a well-known distancing manoeuvre employed by abusers and their conspirers.
After they've beaten their spouses, instigators of domestic violence deny
responsibility for their actions by complaining: 'Look what you made me do!' In the novel 'Sophie's Choice' The eponymous character, a Holocaust
survivor, is forced by a sadistic doctor at Auschwitz to decide the fate
of her two children. One will be gassed.
The other will be allowed to live. When she fails to choose, she's told
they'll both be gassed. In a moment of panic, Sophie chooses and is tormented by guilt for the rest for her days. But she's utterly blameless. The doctor
was entirely responsible, forcing her into a grotesque position. Non-believers don't send themselves to eternal torture. That's the rationalisation of the sadist. All of these responses show why atheists have a problem with hell even though we don't believe it exists.
It's because it dehumanises us. One of the first things done to groups
who are targeted for discrimination is that their human status is stripped of
them. They might be described explicitly as subhuman, or as animals or insects. Rats. Monkeys. Cockroaches.
If you view people as cockroaches, how are you likely to treat them? What about
when you downgrade people to kindling? The day Christopher Hitchens died,
I remember being sent a link to a freshly uploaded video gleefully depicting him burning in hell
— an image relished by many and reflected in a range a very public expressions, from the blogs of christian zealots to the joyful chants of muslims protesting outside the 2012 atheist convention in Melbourne
— alternating his name with 'Ayaan Hirsi Ali'. This ghoulish disposition was embraced as a lifestyle by the Westboro Baptist Church who plumbed new depths of tastelessness
by picketing the funerals of various groups they considered hellbound, and any perceived sympathisers. In 2015,
they were reportedly thwarted in their attempt to obstruct actor Leonard Nimoy's funeral
when they couldn't find its location. The church's leader Fred Phelps openly
revelled in the hate his actions provoked, interpreting it as evidence of his
righteousness, on the basis that the Biblical prophets were also hated. When you reduce people to hell-fodder,
it's remarkable how low you can go. Which is why it's especially important to
attack beliefs that dehumanise. My impression is that most theists have a
great discomfort about the whole 'sending non-believers to hell' concept. Many Christians I've spoken to flat-out
deny the existence of hell, asserting that their god simply wouldn't
allow such an abomination. Others have cheerfully consoled me with
their view that non-believers just die. That's it. No eternal punishment. I'm not
one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I do have to ask: where are
they getting this information? Certainly not from Matthew chapter 25
which refers explicitly to eternal punishment. Sometimes I'm genuinely touched by the
obvious positive intentions of theists who distort their ideology in all kinds of ways in order to reach out their hands in
brotherhood and sisterhood. Some christians go as far as declaring
that a belief in their god is non-essential — all that matters is how we treat each other.
But we have to acknowledge that this is exactly the kind of thinking that got
us into this hellish mess in the first place: making up whatever we want to believe. It's sometimes asserted that religions like
christianity have withstood the test of time. They haven't. They've cheated the test of
time, employing various dishonest tactics such as the indoctrination of children who've not yet developed their critical faculties. But a dishonest tactic that spans both young and old, members and non-members, is the
consistent attempt to marginalise and silence critics. We need to be able
to subject all beliefs to criticism and, as I've shown, that need
only becomes more obvious the greater the knock-on impact a
belief has on other ideas; the greater the power and influence involved; the more fervently criticism is discouraged
— particularly by violent means; and the more a belief has a
dehumanising effect, facilitating remorseless abuse. Doesn't get much plainer. We're talking
about the major world religions. The resentments harboured against
me and others like me, who decline to respect religious
beliefs, are unfounded. I've broken no contract. I give no
special regard to your beliefs, but I ask no special regard for mine.
Beliefs stand or fall on their own merits. I'm not being mean —
criticising unjustified beliefs is important because they can lead to real problems. If some folks make the mistake of investing their core identity
in an unjustified belief so that when it gets criticised,
they feel criticised, then it's up to them to learn from that mistake — not up to everyone else to pay for it. And it's not my attitude the causes wars. Wars are caused by beliefs like supremacism — the idea that one group is
intrinsically superior to all others. Supremacism can be based on many things. Gender. The colour of skin. The scriptures of major world religions like christianity and islam are about
as supremacist as it's possible to be, damning all non-members to eternal torture. No earthly supremacist could hope
to achieve sadism on such a scale. For centuries, religious supremacism
has inspired a range of conflict from everyday acts of social discrimination
to colonialism to genocide. Beliefs like these are what cause wars. And I hope it's now clear why I decline to respect them.
Thanks, I just wish Theramine Trees can also capture his excellent videos in a written format that I can take and read in a peaceful seclusion of a beach watching a beautiful sunset.
...
Except, it demands that I, a non-believer, and others, adulterers, homosexuals, blasphemers, and witches be punished by the submitters with their almighty relishing while seeing its edicts being carried out.
One of his best videos yet!
I question that 'respecting beliefs' comes from those who are not absolutist or egocentric.
As a Christian, I am called to love both neighbor and enemy and must deal kindly, lovingly, and not 'seeking my own way.' I Corinthians 13
I practice this to mean that, I respect muslims, jews, hindus, radical feminists, radical MRA's, nationalists, anarchists, communists, capitalists, etc even if I have a differing view.
it's hard to love those who share contrary thoughts, especially when to us they seem ignorant, hateful, and, sometimes, downright evil. however, that is the challenge Jesus of Nazereth presented. Love thy neighbor. Love thy Enemy.
sincere respect and love, your friend