Religion Is Not Like Sports
If anybody reads this I think they should know this. I’m agnostic. A semi-practicing Jewish agnostic.
Since I’ve been home I’ve had a few conversations about religion. In all of them I’ve found myself making the same point in defense of smaller and less socially accepted faiths, mainly Mormonism. The argument has nothing to do with theology, in fact the premise is that all religious theology is irrational. The rationality or “correctness” of a religion is completely subjective. There is no litmus test to see which deity is real, which gospel is true. Like a few religious people have told me before, faith is a choice.
So with that in mind, my premise is that no religious person is more or less rational than any other religious person (or dogmatic atheist for that matter). How new or weird a religion may seem should have nothing to do with how a religion or its disciples are perceived. Consider the historical lives of many Catholic figureheads. What makes Joseph Smith so unworthy?
One irrational set of beliefs should not be held in higher esteem than another. If faiths must be quantified and judged, let it be by the actions of their disciples. Let religions be rated by the behavior of their followers. Mormons for example, are highly successful in American society. The church breeds a strong sense of family, education, and charity. Most Mormons you meet are unflinchingly polite and kind. Putting aside the tenets of their faith, how can one object to the Mormon lifestyle?
The caveat lies in the extreme. In what we call cults. Consider the polygamist offshoots of the Mormon church which categorically rejects the practice. Or super Islamist terrorist groups. Or Scientology. In these cases the behavior of the disciples, often awful in itself, is overshadowed a hundredfold by the conniving and misleading efforts of leadership or the faulty structure of the institution.
The point I guess, is that religion in itself is all a bunch of question marks. And instead of judging how folks answer those questions, we ought to take a look at how those answers make them behave. Because there’s no right and wrong. Religions are not like elections or sports. There aren’t exit polls or standings. Just people trying their best to get through this world in a way that seems right to them.
You know some people have been known to put LDS in the cult category. Granted the arguments, at least the ones I’ve heard, are usually flawed, having mainly to do with the restrictions the church imposes, forgeting that some of the oldest and most well estalished religions in the world have similar restrictions (which, due to the magic of free will never stopped me from drinking coffee or gin and don’t stop you from eating animal style cheeseburgers).
You make an good (and interesting) argument. It doesn’t take any less logic to believe that Joseph Smith found a bunch of gold plates in a cave in the Eastern US detailing how Jesus stopped off in the new world and told the locals not to drink coffee before ascending to Heaven (or perhaps on his way) than it does to believe any other religious doctorine.
However, for the sake of argument, by that logic it doesn’t take any more to believe that hundreds of alien souls are attached to every human soul and we need “auditing” in order to get rid of them. So, what makes Scientology a cult and Mormonism a religion? That argument sort of minimizes the destinction between cults and religions. You could say that a religion doesn’t ask you to pay for services, but they sort of do (through tithe), or that a religion doesn’t tell believers not to associate with non-believers but…I think I’ll cut myself off, you know what I’m getting at.
Beth
September 19, 2007 at 12:01 am
Can I subscribe to your blog by RSS?
Matt
December 3, 2007 at 5:24 am