In my post on religious diversity I received this comment:
And for the record, I don’t think anybody’s religious sensibilities deserve to be put above the law. You want a driver’s license, you show your face for the picture. You want to be pharmacist, you sell anything legal. You want to take government-insured patients, you take all of them.
It’s no more ridiculous to worship that bull than a book. No less, either.
I agree with the ultimate sentiment in my heart. That being said, proximate judgments and assessments are made with the head. The fool hath said in his heart, “Religion is just another silly belief system.” It isn’t. I accept that the objective substance of religious beliefs may often be silly & even banal, but the outcomes of these beliefs when mixed with the material reality of human beings operating within the world have consequences which constrain & frame choice. I may think that the Hindu idolatry of the cow is silly, but I would not consider eating a medium rare beef steak with a smattering of black pepper on the streets of Ahmedabad.
When it comes to religion I frankly find the atheist refrain that it is just another silly set of beliefs, akin to belief in gnomes or astrology, disingenuous. Gnomes are cuddly, astrology is light-hearted, but gods stir our souls. As a example of what I mean, I once watched Brad Stine, a Christian conservative comedian mocking secularists for objecting to mention of Jesus in a public classroom in a prayer. Stine observed that atheists are silly, fearing the word “Jesus” as if has some magical power. The audience laughed uproariously, they were affirming Stine’s contention that “Jesus” was just a word. But consider this: what if you told Stine’s audience, predominantly evangelical Christians, that class would begin with a prayer to Lord Krishna? After all, Krishna is “just a word.” Of course the reaction would be powerful and negative. No doubt Stine’s audience would abhor the idea of their children being present when due reverence was given over to a “idol” and a “false god.” And for the Christian the word Jesus is manifestly not just a word, it is a word that encapsulates the Word incarnate.1
For the unbeliever what is critical about religion is not the content of beliefs, but the consequence of those beliefs. Astrology is irrelevant to my own life so long as it remains predominantly a pastime indulged in for entertainment value, those who live by lies may continue to do so so long as the consequences of those lies do not bleed into the public sphere. The problem, inasmuch as there is one, with religion is that these beliefs acquire ontological significance & emotional salience. Like a many-headed hydra the memeplex that we term “religion” wraps itself around the riotous scaffolding which is the human cognitive infrastructure and like a slingshot can amplify the power of a vector by many orders of magnitude. Religion can turn anger and resentment into the fury of the gods, a righteous crusade to avenge wrongs of cosmic scope. It can take the human ability to empathize and general abstract universal concepts of justice and transform them into herculean acts of altruism and compassion. It is a force of our nature which have to take into account, whether we think it’s built upon a foundation of lies or not. The Emperor Constantine, the first Christian Emperor of the Romans, issued edicts where he frankly lectured his pagan subjects that they were worshipers of “illusions,” yet he continued the grants of customary subsidies to the cults of Rome. It took decades for Emperors who were followers of the Christian religion to cease subsidizing religious cults which they sincerely believed to be the work of demons deceiving men & women into worshiping lies. They simply had to deal with the practical realities of the deeply held beliefs of their pagan subjects and allies, false or not.2
Let me illustrate the necessity of pragmatism with an example. Consider that you are a public official in a town. This town is divided in religious sentiment. 1/3 of the population are devout Mormons, 1/3 of the population are devout Orthodox Jews and 1/3 of the population are devout Muslims. Assume you have a 7 day week. You know immediately that public business can only be practical on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The other days are obligate days of rest and religious devotion and reflection for a substantial proportion of the population. Why? If you are an atheist, you will believe that these days are “off limits” because of superstition, the command from on high of a non-existent being. But atheist or not, you also know that any attempt to dissuade the respective religions from resting on their prescribed days will be met with resistance (and likely failure). Additionally, there is the possibility that the other groups will support the third group if any attempt to target one sect is made simply to prevent the precedent. The fundamental rationale for why a particular day must be removed from the calender of common public activity is silly, but its proximate impact is real as the day.
This is what I mean when I stated that excessive religious diversity was problematic in a society where toleration and accommodation were both cherished. Sects have their own peculiarities which defy common sense and logic, and as the number of sects proliferates so the multitudinous demands would swamp any capacity for accommodation. Consider the controversies having to do with Christian Scientists, who often reject the efficacy of modern medicine. This small group has generally been able to receive relatively gentle treatment from the powers that be despite the reality that some members seem to be engaging in child endangerment by not making recourse toward modern medicine. In some cases children have died from common and eminently treatable ailments. But, there are only about 100,000 Christian Scientists in a population of 300 million. Some of the problems which have occurred because the Amish are “left alone” by the authorities must be kept in perspective as there are only a few hundred thousand of these people. If these religious groups were larger then accommodation would be much more problematic. Similarly, the numbers of sects of equal proportion can have a serious affect on a social order. Consider the possibility that 7 different sects had 7 different days of rest! In this case one could not be religiously neutral, by the choice of cordoning off particular days one would be favoring one group over another. Of course, there is a solution to this problem: simply having parallel systems of public accommodation so that all groups can be serviced appropriately. That is, there might be a set of civil servants of religion A which would be able to be keep with the rhythms of religion A, and so on. This would result in a segmented society with no universal public square. And that is why I think we should seriously examine the consequences of allowing for unfettered religious diversity to bloom within a society combined with a sincere attempt at neutrality.
Addendum: I do believe it is essential for individuals to call “bullshit” on ludicrous ideas. I find the pablum in American society about “spirituality” tiresome. That being said, too often I encounter the response, “but religion isn’t true….” My question is always: OK, now what? I myself am not a believer, so telling me that religion isn’t true seems superfluous.
1 – I don’t really know what this last part means.
2 – Between Constantine’s Edict of Milan in 313, which formalized the toleration of Christianity, and Theodosius’ state sanctioned banning of public paganism in the 390s there were a series of incremental actions which diverted imperial funds away from their traditional support of local pagan cults and institutions toward the Christian churches. But note, at no time was the state truly neutral, it was a slow and gradual shifting of patronage.
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