Religious Preconceptions

I look around at the state of organized religion in America and sometimes I wonder how it can keep swinging in this direction without any restraint. Our fundamentalist in this country have had quite a run in the last few years. They are mobilized to vote (one could argue that there would not have been 8 years of a Bush Presidency without them), they try to restrict the teaching of evolution in the classroom, they try to get their religious views codified and incorporated into government, they want to restrict abortion for everyone regardless of that person's own beliefs, they want to define stem cell research as abortion and restrict it, and they are increasingly intolerant of anyone that does not think and believe as they do. They paint much of popular culture as against them and they claim society is degenerating and threatens their morals and most be regulated. These fundamentalist religious Americans are just as guilty of closing their eyes to reality as the Taliban and other fundamentalist Islamic sects that we have painted as so out of touch and such a threat.

So why aren't more people alarmed? Is it that strict restrictive ultraconservative religious movements are always wrong, unless it's your religion?

There is much talk and fear of Iran's President Ahmadinejad. This is a man that is working on missiles and nuclear weapons and keeps saying that Israel deserves to be destroyed. We all shake our heads when he says that the Holocaust wasn't real. Whether he believes the Holocaust really happened or not, this is a political statement. Israel was granted statehood as a direct result of the Holocaust, in fact, you could say that Israel owes its existence to the Holocaust. Amadinejad's Holocaust denial is his way of taking away the justification of Israel. Does he really believe it? You can't tell. But we see so clearly that the man is insane because there is no reason to justify or defend him. If he were saying crazy things in defense of Christianity, we'd be watching a significant portion of our countrymen voicing support for his views.

There are those that want to strike at Iran, and I can't say that their reasoning is completely without merit. The problem is that even if we knew we were trying to remove a small fraction that led the country but didn't represent the views of the vast majority of the people, it still wouldn't be perceived that way. You could argue that we should invade Iran because a small group has taken control and will not allow their fellow countrymen to believe anything but what they believe.

This has striking parallels to the pre-2001 situation in Afghanistan with the Taliban. We felt perfectly justified in routing out that government. Granted, they were a anarchist style of government that did little but enforce morals, and as a result gave free rein to terrorists to use their country as a base and safe haven, but you have to admit, that other countries are guilty of harboring terrorists, they are just less blatant about it.

I've always had more scientific objections to religious movements. Denial of the age of the earth or evolution (and to a lesser extent, climate change) is often the stubborn position of American Christian Fundamentalists. Religious groups are always quick to refute any perceived contradiction to their holiest beliefs. They believe views that contradict the Bible will introduce doubt that will cause their members to reject their religion in its entirety. As a result, they often pick fights with scientists' claims that contradict strict readings or common interpretations of the Bible, and usually start to paint the scientist as deliberately trying to tear apart their religion. This is laughable, if it weren't so deadly serious. Some poor nerdy scientist finds some dusty bone and gets all excited about finding some fossils that provide some previously unseen link in the long chain of evolution, and pretty soon he's being painted as being in league with the devil. I picture some dusty dirty archaeologist with a pith helmet on, jumping up and down on some arid digging site and in the moment of his greatest joy being screamed at by some fanatic that telling him that he hates god. The reaction of the scientist is just complete bewilderment. He's totally focused on understanding something with painstakingly gathered evidence, and it never occurred to him that someone would take offense at it.

If you do engage scientists in religious discussions, you often find people of faith. I think many people are quite comfortable allowing for both science and religion in their lives. These people are not relying on the Bible as their sole source of information. In fact, they are allowing for the fact that God may be more complex than we can possibly comprehend. As Isaac Asimov said, any significantly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. It is the same with religious beliefs. If you believe in God, how do you suppose you could possibly understand creation? Maybe that's our purpose in life, to keep picking it apart and trying to figure out how it was done.