The pope, pedophiles and pragmatic pluralism

There’s a fair body of both social and biological science now to suggest that, however it comes about, most humans are cognitively wired to accept irrational beliefs.

But it often requires a stark level of realism to break through the mental defensive shell erected around that belief, with the end result cognitive dissonance — the emotional quaker a person goes through when they can no longer rationalize having faith in something and suddenly lose its emotional support.

A former mormon bishop once said that realizing his faith was based on lies was like having the world pulled out from under him, like he had no understanding of humanity or his role in it, for months.

Like most intelligent men who are nonetheless capable of becoming captive to faith, he’s happier since living such a strident orthodoxy, although has somewhat lapsed in that he immediately turned to capitalism as a replacement.

People: all systems of faith, economics and politics are created by us. We’re flawed, so none of them are perfect.

The question is how imperfect, or blind to those imperfections, a faithful person is willing to be. This Dallas Morning News article outlines the crisis of faith people around the world are experiencing as it becomes more evident daily that high-ranking Catholics — and quite possibly Pope Benedict himself — helped cover up, or wilfully ignored, years of system child abuse.

This guy, creepy? No way!

The article is crap, replete with specious examples of crises of faith that, regardless of the cause, have long-existed in the church. But the end result is interesting: people don’t lose their faith in a higher power, just their faith in a particular religion.

If you’re a pragmatic pluralist — someone who accepts we’ll likely never understand our origins or which side of the atheism/theism argument is correct — it’s neat to see people realizing they can use the ceremony, community and decency inherent to many moderated religions, and discard the divisive, insulating effects of orthodoxy.

This is not new. Many religions have can thank their lucky starts they embraced religion and reform early on, and consequently are represented by entire congregations of agnostic supporters. For example, there are more than 40 synagogues across North America that are home to “secular humanist judaism,” the practice of elements of the faith, but with an acceptance that religion is created by man in an attempt to understand his origins.

On the judeo-christian front, there’s unitarianism, which is rooted in the Jeffersonian tradition of taking the logical communal lessons from the Bible and applying them humanely …without arrogantly assuming a super being that looks like us (or we like him, six of one, half a dozen of the other) is in charge of everything and created it all.

A few years ago, the author and lecturer Dr. David Wulff told me it all comes down to the same thing: a need for comfort and security.

“In religion, you have a magnet that draws people together: there’s mystery, there’s the promise of a form of immortality, there is hope for solutions to complex problems,” said Wulff.

“A lot of it is very pragmatic. It’s been argued that religion is what we do when there are no real answers left. And you see that reflected all the time: when people are trapped in a mine and there’s nothing the people trying to save them can do, they pray. The fact that it’s so often ineffective doesn’t seem to matter, given the comfort that it brings them.

“I’m thinking back to a study done in the 1970s by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in which they trained interviewers to go into nine congregations and interview members to find out why the church was important to them and what about it was most important.

“And what the people kept saying over and over again was that it was the sense of caretaking, first towards the congregation by the minister, and then between the congregation itself. Whenever one of the interviewers would suggest there was something wrong with the answers, because they didn’t discuss the church’s ‘justification by faith’ doctrine, or God or Jesus, they would remark that there was no better conversation stopper than the actual theological questions.

“So despite the church’s belief that all of these important doctrines, rules, codes and traditions were important, inevitably the congregation wasn’t concerned with that. They were much more concerned with one another.”

Not that they’re selling anything….

One of the ways in which faith organizations act dishonestly is in their belief-based, self-appointed status as arbiters of fairness.

Here’s a neat example: an article on a U.K. christianity site. Sure, they balance the story with a a quote from the “secularists.”

But that headline? Wow, subtle. Bet they think this is a fair piece overall, too.

FAITH, THE FINAL FRONTIER…

“Science fiction takes the reader into a strange world without God,” warns David Cloud of the Fundamental Baptist Information Service. “And the prominent names in this field are athiests.”

Cloud, who published his warning on his Way of Life Literature website, notes that Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov were both athiests. Arthur C. Clarke claimed he didn’t believe in either God or an afterlife, Cloud notes, and was “probably a homosexual.”

“Science fiction is intimately associated with Darwinian evolution. Sagan and Asimov, for example, were prominent evolutionary scientists. Sci-fi arose in the late 19th and early 20th century as a product of an evolutionary worldview that denies the Almighty Creator. In fact, evolution IS the pre-eminent science fiction. Beware!” writes Cloud.

Cloud is referred to as “Brother Cloud” on the website and has written a long books warning against the evils of everything from contemporary Christian music to immodest female attire. In a book on the latter topic called Dressing for the Lord , he responds to women’s vexing arguments such as, “I wear pants because there are many things I can’t do in a dress,” and “As an older woman I don’t think the modesty issue is very significant for me.” You can download an electronic version of the book from the website for $6.45.

Cloud writes that while science fiction may contain a supreme being or “force,” it isn’t the one in the Bible. He doesn’t mention anything about the dangers of reading J.R.R. Tolkein, a Catholic, or C.S. Lewis, who was an Anglican deacon. That’s surprising because their genre was fantasy — a field I suspect Cloud is intimately familiar with.

–30–

Fanboys in the hood

The next time you hear someone question the separation of church and state, tell them to trust in the Force and, Yoda willing, everything will be all right.

Seems to be working for Briton Chris Jarvis, who has received a letter of apology after being told by staff in a job centre in Southend that he had to remove his hood. Jarvis, you see, is one of 30,000 Britons who list their religion as Jedi.

Sure, if you want people to immediately ascertain your geek-fanboy status, it’s a lot less clever than switching a few letters on the back of your Volkswagen Jetta. But for those not blessed with German automotive technology, it’s a cheap alternative.

It’s already been pointed out by at least one blogger than Jarvis’s argument — he’s planning to sue over the hood incident — isn’t particularly valid, given that only the bad guys wear hoods consistently in the Star Wars movies.

I suspect there’s an easy answer to this.

Future leader of the British Labour Party, Mr. Yoda McYoda.

If he can get credit for believing in a fictional religion, from a series of fictional works staged on a series of fictional planets, the courts should be allowed to schedule the hearing on the desert planet of Tatooine. If Mr. Jarvis can make it, great. If not, they summarily dispose of the case.

He will have the right to be represented by an Ewok. If he waives that right, any lightsabre within reach may be used against him.

Of course, if we hold modern religions based on modern works of fiction to such a high standard, there’s no reason we shouldn’t hold ancient religions based on ancient works of fiction to the same standard — say, some objective proof of the existence of Christ. (Proof, not the New Testament, the first book of which was written at least six decades after Christ’s alleged birth and death.)

Any proof will do. Grave marker, piece of cloth with his DNA on it, standing diary or document actually written while he was alive, which, despite the discovery of numerous other documents from that era of human civilization, has yet to make an appearance. Anything.

No?

Well, then let the farce be with you.