Agnostic Universe

My mother forwarded yet another religious spam email. This one was titled Billy Graham’s Prayer For Our Nation and ends with a call for a return to “One Nation Under God”. According to Snopes it isn’t from Billy Graham but that doesn’t really matter much regarding the intent of the email. The general text of the email sent to me is in that Snopes article if you’re interested.

Taken on face value as simply human values what does most of these items have to do with anything written in the Bible and a supposed dictated word of God? Does that book really give an exact recipe for a Christian-only government and such things as the nuances between a government sponsored form of charity and an overly dependent welfare system that is detrimental to society? The Bible does say certain things are punishable by death (usually a stoning) so how is the killing of an abortionist contrary to the general morality of the Bible? I do believe in the wisdom and values of the forefathers of this country but they didn’t create One Nation Under God as this email implied. Kenneth Davis had a good article on CNN recently about this. One Nation is inclusive and Under God is exclusionary so this phrase never made any sense to me.

Look at this fantasy art piece I came across while searching for information about One Nation Under God. I found this to be hilarious because the artist honestly believes in Jesus as the origin of our government and the Constitution for the people even though the Constitution has zero mentions of God, Jesus, or any creator reigning over “We The People”. It is a great visual depiction of what a Christian nation would be if one existed because the Constitution would have dictated the leadership of God and Jesus over the People as central to the government with a setup for worship and fidelity to that specific structure. This contrasts to the actual setup we have of a self-governing organization of checks and balances that were an attempt to protect individual liberties and societal justice instead of defining an exact and unchanging morality dictated by a religious leadership under the direction of One Nation under One God and following the literal word of the Bible as the rule of law.

Oh well, most people get these emails and just say it sounds good and it matches with the feel-good things they think they believe. This is cotton candy for the mind that reinforces “God is good, humans are evil, and we should listen to the God-believing humans to tell us how to think and what we should do with our resources.” The same goes true for politics and I wish people wouldn’t consider themselves Republicans or Democrats even if politicians are doing it. We should actually think for ourselves without labels while expecting the same from our political leaders. If we really had One Nation Under God in practice we could have just one political party because the religious right version of the Republican Party would be the only one true party needed under God.

Instead, since we are in practice a country of E Pluribus Unum (Out of Many, One) then we really should have more choices and parties representing our political beliefs and all of the variations in the reality of humanity. It seems like we’ve been reduced down to a country of Out of Two, One with one side of that really pushing One Nation Under God to kick out the views of the other half of the two.

I added Bertrand Russell’s Liberal Decalogue to the Agnostic Universe online library. It’s a much better guide to morality than any religious writings I’ve read that usually cover obvious ethical viewpoints such as murder being a bad thing. Do we really need a god to tell us murder is bad?

Here is what an agnostic by the name of Bertrand Russell wrote in 1951, as good a year to write down words to live by as anything written 2166-440 BC or 50-95 AD:

1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.

2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.

3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.

4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.

5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.

6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.

7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.

9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.

10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.

Another great cartoon from Atheist Cartoons keeping on the subject here lately about morality. The Bible is a worthless book for determining an exact definition of ethics and principles to live by regardless of its truth value for creation. It could be that I might believe the Christian God is not real but then think that their book and religious teachings are useful and good, but I don’t.

I’ve said in previous posts I think humanity already has what is good that our primitive ancestors put in their religious books and we don’t need any of these primitive books to confuse folks on what is right and wrong. God hates fags? God wants people stoned for various offenses? Just look at the other Ten Commandments in Exodus, otherwise known as the Ritual Decalogue. Read it for yourself and tell me how great this self-identified Jealous God really is. There’s some interesting requirements God set out for us humans. For example, I’m a first-born son so apparently I should have been redeemed. I don’t know what that entails so fortunately I found a Jewish tradition of Pidyon HaBen that covers it. Since I was raised Catholic and not Jewish, I’m guessing for Christians Jesus redeemed everyone and is why the Old Testament rules are safely ignored. That’s why there wasn’t a redemption ceremony where I was paid for in silver, but even though I received a lot of Catholic teaching as a child I don’t recall much information on the Old Testament and what no longer applies. I’ve since gone the next step and ignore the New Testament as well.

It’s nonsense like all of this that led me away from religion and to the acknowledgement that nobody knows what the heck they’re talking about. The ancient writings of our primitive ancestors in the Middle East are as useful as the ancient writings concerning the gods of Greek, Roman, Norse, Native American, etc. origins. They’re all in the same religious fiction category in my library. Go ahead and read those writings for examples of ethics and human principles, but just know that they are the ethics of the people that wrote them and not of the gods they claim to represent.

I posted this as a comment reply to The Golden Rule post but it’s long enough to elevate to an actual blog post.

I assume humanity works through our standards of good in any given situation as an imperfect society of fellowship with our laws to guide us. A “standard” is universal and applies to all situations. “Thou shall not kill” is an absolute standard of good that should prevent you from using deadly force as a police officer or defend the country as a military member, but most bible believers judge for themselves when this supposed absolute standard of good actually applies. All religions don’t have a standard of good that contradicts the rest of humanity because it is all of humanity that shares in the universal guide of the “golden rule”. It is just a guide and is not perfect in itself. If I were a twisted individual that enjoyed pain I should not follow “do unto others…” and inflict pain on other people.

It’s funny you think I said Americans are not good and even quote the word “not” as if I said it. Saying a country appears to be nicer and safer than mine doesn’t mean the United States is not also nice and safe. I just said that Japan appeared to be higher on the scale of a “good society.” There isn’t a specific standard for a good society unless you want to try to make something up with crime statistics and the amount of individual freedoms enjoyed by the people if such things can be quantified.

We are all evil? It is the saddest thing for me to read when I come across it and is definitely one big thing I find wrong with religion. I believe most people are good and you believe everyone is evil. We use our inherent good as a society to collectively determine what is good for our societies. It isn’t perfect but our tribes have managed to graduate to governments and laws that work fairly well for some of the basics of good. If someone steals from me or murders my family (we can agree on those being bad, right?) then police, courts, jail, etc. all step in and take care of this. Hopefully the police could step in and prevent murder of my family but taking care of the murderer is the action that stops that person from killing again.

What does religion do in all of this? Here is the religious standard of good and how it operates. We are all evil sinners so religion offers forgiveness for the murderer. If they can only find Jesus then the murderer should be set free to live for Christ and kill again in his next moment of weakness. It’s not his fault because God made us as pure evil. What kind of nonsense is that? I don’t think most people have evil thoughts and urges. Let’s continue down your thought process that the bible is the standard of good. The 10 commandments should become law for this country and our most severe punishments should be for violating them since this is the top 10 list. So if I have another god before your god or create false idols I should be punished more severely than being a murderer if the commandments are ranked in order of importance. I should be punished for the thought crime of coveting. All parents should be honored so I think that does away with child protective services and the crimes of child abuse. These are just some applications of your good from the top of my head.

You are good without god. We are not evil. I don’t need Christ to stop my hand from stealing from you, killing you, or any other evil deed that you think we all are compelled to do since we are evil. Simply providing “Christ” as the ultimate standard just will not cut it. Humans do disagree at many points, and we work through it situation by situation. If it were perfect then one true church would currently rule the world and we’d only need a single priest to serve as judge and jury over all evil deeds. You can ask god and the Pope how well that one works out for us all.

Standards of good are human standards that don’t come from a god. “You have to share in my religion to be considered good” is such a ridiculous notion. I’ve visited Japan and it’s a country with amazing people that I would point to as an excellent example of an overall good society. Yet, the majority of Japanese are increasingly secular and follow no religion. They keep associations with Shinto and Buddhism as a matter of tradition rather than belief.

Article 20 of their 1947 Constitution states:

“Freedom of religion is guaranteed to all. No religious organization shall receive any privileges from the State, nor exercise any political authority”

Well, doesn’t that sound familiar? Separation of religion and the state was mandated by the occupation of Japan because of the role of State Shinto in furthering Japan’s military aggression in Asia before and during World War II. Isn’t that a fair warning for maintaining a seperation of church and state? It’s sad that many Christians and Muslims would look at Japan and the religion of the people to say that the country is worthless and immoral based solely on their belief. However, in my short visits I found the country to be nicer and safer than many areas of the United States. Nobody has a monopoly on “being good” based upon their primitive religions.

Questions of good and evil, right and wrong are commonly thought unanswerable by science. But Sam Harris argues that science can — and should — be an authority on moral issues, shaping human values and setting out what constitutes a good life.

I believe that morality is rooted in our natural being and the societies we form. Science as “the study of the nature and behaviour of natural things and the knowledge that we obtain about them” should most definitely be able to define and categorize moralities. I would love to see science truly try to define our moral landscape and help us all define and arrive at the optimal viewpoints of morality for all of humanity. The cloudy vision of mythical beliefs that many people still rely upon today is a reflection of ourselves wrapped in unnecessary ficitional stories. Like many other primitive beliefs about the universe that science has shed a needed light on, I do believe science can clear up and improve our collective morality.

The last part of the question I responded to in my last post that I should touch on was: You may not “believe” we are sinners, but if that is in fact true, how do you explain the existence of illicit, immoral behavior in a species that is otherwise, as you say, “inherently good”?

I believe “sinners” and everyone’s evil ways are generally the exception and not the rule. We are not 100% good, but I do believe we are mostly good. Christians tend to believe that we couldn’t have a decent and civil society without a deity that keeps us in line. Some actually believe it is the word of god that created our system of government and laws. That doesn’t explain tribes of humans that came before Christianity that seemed to have done fine without Christianity or any other monotheistic religion. The Bible has no mention of democracy or any hint that the will of the people has any place under the will of God. Native Americans worshipping their ancestors and gods of nature were not lawless savages lacking ethics or the basics of morality. There are many other groups of humans of the past and present that have done just fine without that particular deity in their lives. Humanity was able to establish rules and laws to develop peaceful tribes that grew into larger societies and countries without the benefit of the “almighty” word of the Christian God.

If we were truly all sinners and our basic instinct was evil, then the claim that the Christian God is the only way to overcome this would mean that 2/3 of the planet would be destroying itself at this very moment. Do you really think that the Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists, etc. are all destroying themselves because they are evil sinners without the right God to guide them? Some radicals may make the news, but they are a select few out of the billions that make up a non-Christian world majority that are doing just fine. The Christians tend to overlook their own radicals and mentally unstable people that head to a church and kill a few random people. I could easily link to many stories about that, but it doesn’t mean all Christians are evil sinners that will head to their church with a gun.

The point I’m trying to make is that for any Christian that continues to try to tell me that we are all really a bunch of evil sinners that need God to be good I have to say I just don’t buy it given what we’ve become as a human race. If we were evil creatures then the world would be a terrible place as most of us are unable or unwilling to overcome such a basic instinct and common trait. The 1/3 of the world that is Christian would be the only civilized society having to protect themselves from the complete evil that surrounds them if you really believe that were to be true. Get out and see the world and you will see that this just isn’t the real face of humanity. Overall, humanity is good.

A comment brings up this overall question of what is good anyway? I suggested that humanity is good for the most part, but what is that actually measured by when an unbeliever says it? Well, obviously since I say it, then goodness is defined and measured by my own judgements. This obviously may not match at all with your own view. For example, if you believe a good woman covers her entire body and barely shows her eyes, then we disagree. If you believe a good woman should submit to her husband and is second to him instead of an equal partner, then we disagree. If you believe a good person must bow to a deity as their ruler and master, then we disagree. When I speak of an overall good it has to be seen as an overall feeling instead of an exact list of what is specifically good and bad in my view.

I will quote the words of Bertrand Russell who answered similar questions:

Since you deny ‘God’s Law’, what authority do you accept as a guide to conduct?

An Agnostic does not accept any ‘authority’ in the sense in which religious people do. He holds that a man should think out questions of conduct for himself. Of course, he will seek to profit by the wisdom of others, but he will have to select for himself the people he is to consider wise, and he will not regard even what they say as unquestionable. He will observe that what passes as ‘God’s law’ varies from time to time. The Bible says both that a woman must not marry her deceased husband’s brother, and that, in certain circumstances, she must do so. If you have the misfortune to be a childless widow with an unmarried brother-in-law, it is logically impossible for you to avoid disobeying ‘God’s law’.

How do you know what is good and what is evil? What does an agnostic consider a sin?

The Agnostic is not quite so certain as some Christians are as to what is good and what is evil. He does not hold, as most Christians in the past held, that people who disagree with the government on abstruse points of theology ought to suffer a painful death. He is against persecution, and rather chary of moral condemnation.

As for ‘sin’, he thinks it not a useful notion. He admits, of course, that some kinds of conduct are desirable and some undesirable, but he holds that the punishment of undesirable kinds is only to be commended when it is deterrent or reformatory, not when it is inflicted because it is thought a good thing on its own account that the wicked should suffer. It was this belief in vindictive punishment that made men accept Hell. This is part of the harm done by the notion of ‘sin’.

Does an agnostic do whatever he pleases?

In one sense, no; in another sense, everyone does whatever he pleases. Suppose, for example, you hate someone so much that you would like to murder him. Why do you not do so? You may reply: “Because religion tells me that murder is a sin.” But as a statistical fact, agnostics are not more prone to murder than other people, in fact, rather less so. They have the same motives for abstaining from murder as other people have. Far and away the most powerful of these motives is the fear of punishment. In lawless conditions, such as a gold rush, all sorts of people will commit crimes, although in ordinary circumstances they would have been law-abiding. There is not only actual legal punishment; there is the discomfort of dreading discovery, and the loneliness of knowing that, to avoid being hated, you must wear a mask with even your closest intimates. And there is also what may be called “conscience”: If you ever contemplated a murder, you would dread the horrible memory of your victim’s last moments or lifeless corpse. All this, it is true, depends upon your living in a law-abiding community, but there are abundant secular reasons for creating and preserving such a community.

I said that there is another sense in which every man does as he pleases. No one but a fool indulges every impulse, but what holds a desire in check is always some other desire. A man’s anti-social wishes may be restrained by a wish to please God, but they may also be restrained by a wish to please his friends, or to win the respect of his community, or to be able to contemplate himself without disgust. But if he has no such wishes, the mere abstract concepts of morality will not keep him straight.

Why do many of the religions have this notion that people are sinners or evil at heart? This is followed by the solution that there is a deity that can guide us and forgive us for following our naturally evil instincts. For that forgiveness you must follow their religious teachings and their religious leaders since you can’t be trusted to think for yourself. On the flip side, but with the same kind of mentality is the claim that the United States is the perfect way to govern and the absolute best country we could have. I do love living here but I’m sure we’re far from perfection. I think we generally have the right amount of freedom and are collectively full of good intentions. The true root of that American spirit is humanity itself. We formed a free society by the people and for the people. We obviously weren’t built up as a theocratic country under the Christian God no matter what some may try to say and there are other posts that have addressed that. Given that our government is from the people and not a God, you would think our country is inherently sinful. I guess that’s why some religious people think this country needs to be under God to correct our sinful ways even though I think we’ve done just fine without a deity ruling over us.

I think religion needs to sell the fact that we are evil so they can then sell us all their salvation from our sinning ways. If they really preached what I believe then they wouldn’t have that guilt as a weapon over our minds. I truly believe most of us are good and loving people at our core. Why else would we have the instinct to care for our offspring and families? Why else would we not feel a common bond to our fellow humans and lend a hand to a total stranger? I don’t need religion to tell me that these things are good for me and us as a family and society. My first instinct isn’t to kick a person when they’re down or take advantage of someone that is disadvantaged. Is that your first instinct?

My first thought in any situation isn’t to lie, cheat, steal, and defraud my way out of a problem. Is that really your first thought and basic impulse? Do you really need religion to tell you to be good in life? I wonder how many people actually thought it was a great idea to steal and murder until they read it in the Bible that they shouldn’t. I don’t believe those are unique ideas that people didn’t understand until it was written in a holy book. I know these ideas came from humanity anyway since I believe the only source of our holy books is the humans that wrote them.

People shouldn’t need a fear of God to keep them in line. I’ve said this in a previous post but it is a good example to write here again. If a fear of God and a devotion to your religion is what is really needed to be good, then there wouldn’t be such a thing as a pedophile priest. I couldn’t imagine a deity that would allow such a thing to even happen if there really were miracles. These religious leaders are supposedly closer to God than the average person and should really know these huge eternal consequences of their sins. However, there is nothing about religion that stops them or even effectively punishes them to prevent them from doing such things again. Instead, religions actually offer them unconditional forgiveness. Isn’t that nice? Why don’t they just do it again then since they know forgiveness is so easy to get? I wonder how much religion contributes to the existence of repeat offenders. It is the laws and punishments of human societies that more effectively deals with such sins against humanity. A punishment of some sort is a more effective deterrent.

Even though I believe most people are good at heart I do realize not everyone decides to live that way and there probably are some truly evil people at their core. Additionally, a good person that believes everyone else is evil and full of sin might not feel guilty about doing bad things to those “evil” people as well. Even the most devout religious person can rationalize doing bad things in the context of dealing with evil people. This is how we have Christians in the military who are very willing to kill the “evil” enemy. I’ve never met a person with a truly absolute morality that didn’t adjust their actions to the situation. I can also say I don’t believe I’ve met a person that I think is truly evil or a sinner at their core even though there must be at least a few that exist. Serial killers and child molesters come to mind. Overall, I may just have more hope and faith in humanity than the average Christian does in believing such people are a very minor exception to the rule. I don’t believe we are sinners at heart and I do believe that humanity is inherently good.

Quotes are taken from Voices of Faith: I’m an atheist and a good person

An atheist is as religious as a non-atheist. He knows God enough to deny him. I knew a man who at first believed in God, but bad experiences soured his soul. Bitterness set in. He became an atheist, but, in reality he personally disliked God.

This is an interesting point. A bad religious experience does probably make atheists and agnostics that are God-haters that may still believe in the God that disappointed them. If this is true then it doesn’t do very good for the image of non-believers to both believers and other non-believers. We lose sight of the silent majority of the faithless that lack a faith and are still good and decent people.

We do notice the outspoken non-believers that do appear to hate their former God. I don’t think that’s a good thing. Why hate something you don’t believe in? Why hate those that still believe? Why not just feel pity for their delusions just as they feel pity for our non-belief?

Lama Chuck Stanford, Rime Buddhist Center & Monastery: We all know people who are perfectly moral people, who lead meaningful lives but are not religious. So it is obvious that religion alone is not necessary to being a good person. His Holiness the Dalai Lama said: “The essence of all religions is love, compassion and tolerance. These qualities are necessities, not luxuries; in fact the very survival of our planet is dependent upon them. When you are motivated by kindness and compassion, your particular type of religious faith is unimportant. What is important is living your life in a loving and compassionate way.”

While religion or a belief in God may not be necessary for being a good person, religion does enhance the lives of many. Through religion our life can become a deeper path of discovery that brings us in touch with the basic nature of who we are and how we relate to the world. It is through the practice of meditation that we develop an awareness that our problems have a universal quality that is part of a much larger vision. It is this vision that can make our life fuller and richer.

All religions encourage good actions, moral virtues, personal responsibility, and see the world and our lives as sacred and meaningful. Regardless of one’s belief about God and religion, developing love and compassion for ourselves and others should be our highest priority.

I agree with the sentiment of this section. Love, compassion, and tolerance are all virtues that should be shared by both sides of belief. I disagree that religion is the best path of discovery to getting in touch with the nature of who we are and how we relate to the world. I think it clouds your own vision and ability to think about the truth when it is wrapped up in other people’s views and beliefs of questionable origins. I think a religious based reflection on reality is about as reliable as the “telephone game“.

I see my own life as sacred and meaningful because I am the only me and this is the only life I have. I believe love and compassion for ourselves and others is essential for all because it enables us to live together. Good actions benefit society and ultimately comes back to benefit us individually, so they are both selfless and selfish. I don’t need a religion to mandate being able to see the benefits of good and moral citizenship.