Gods and Democrats
Amy Sullivan has a pet peeve: “the seemingly reckless way in which terms like ‘values’ and ‘religion’ and ‘morals’ are being tossed about in the press.” She’s an outspoken liberal Christian, and I’m an outspoken liberal atheist, and I have to say that I agree completely. I also somewhat agree with this comment, but I have one reservation. A major reservation.
You’ve heard me say it before, but apparently it needs repeating: A good many people are Democrats not despite their faith but precisely because of their faith. I don’t want to read “religious” when what you mean is “right-wing.” I don’t want to read “evangelical” when what you mean is “conservative evangelical.” And I don’t want to read “moral values” when what you’re really referring to are hot-button, right-wing sexual morality issues. The conflation of those terms with those specific definitions is NOT a neutral decision; it’s part of a very conscious strategy. It’s understandable that some news outlets have been taken in by the spin. Repeating the spin, however, is irresponsible.
This is a good point—there is a common, grossly mistaken assumption that one can equate morality with a very specific subset of Christianity. I can see why Sullivan is annoyed by it, since it drives me up the wall, too. It’s offensive and exclusionary, because it implies that all of us who aren’t right-wing Southern Baptists are out there wallowing in a cesspool of depravity with Caligula.
Here’s where Sullivan and I part company, though: she blames the media. I blame religion.
Religion has always claimed itself to be the ultimate arbiter of morality and the steward of public values. The Old Testament is extraordinarily nit-picky, right down to telling you what you’re allowed to eat and wear under punishment of death for violations; it advocates murdering, raping, and enslaving people who worship different gods. Fortunately, the New Testament is a bit more tolerant, replacing murder etc. with conversion, but still…an invisible god and his busy little priests continue to be the source of moral values. One can hardly blame the media for their attitude; they are merely parroting the howling claims of the loudest, most absolutist, most certain representatives of religion in our country.
I’m willing to grant Ms. Sullivan the word “religious.” I would like to see it broadened to include and value people of a liberal Christian bent. But “moral values” is a term that does not belong to the tolerant, open-minded individuals who follow the egalitarian teachings of Jesus, even when they share them. Moral values are secular. Freethinkers have them too. I don’t want to read “moral values” when what you’re really referring to is piety and prayer and church attendance and missionary work, and I definitely don’t want to see morality conflated with religion. While replacing the primitive fundamentalism of the right wing with the liberal theology of the left would be a distinct improvement, it doesn’t address the root cause of the problem: that human values should be founded on humanity, not faith in some unseen supernatural being.
The Democratic party should be the party of tolerance and diversity. We should welcome Christians and Moslems and Buddhists and Hindus and Deists and pagans and agnostics and atheists, and the only way all of them can be encompassed is by recognizing that moral values and Democratic values are wholly secular, independent of any particular faith. And one thing we need to get the media to communicate is that “secular” is not inferior to “religious”, but is actually a higher kind of value, better because of its universality.
March 6th, 2005 at 9:04 am
Thank you PZ for a fine essay on morality and literacy. Beats the hell out of sitting on a hard church pew for an hour on Sunday morning, and your message is more inspiring, too.
March 6th, 2005 at 9:09 am
Well put.
I think a quick glance at your local Letters to the Editor on any given day would support your argument that the words “Christian” and “religious” are associated with conservative evangelicals. Conservative evangelicals normally refer to themselves as Christians, even though what they’re saying represents only a limited percentage of practicioners of that religion. You rarely see letters from liberal Christians written in response that say, “Hey bub, you speak for yourself, and leave my spirituality out of it.” So, it gives the appearance that conservative evangelicals speak for all of Christianity, even when anyone with two synapses to rub together knows it’s not true. And, of course, when you repeat a lie often enough…
March 6th, 2005 at 9:23 am
Good point, PZ. The assumption that those who don’t believe in God have no morals is nonsense.
March 6th, 2005 at 10:05 am
Ignorance reigns supreme and superstition is her crown.. we’re a stupid lot. And to even ask the question,”what would Jesus do?’should give us an indication of how stupid we are. America was founded on secular principles and those who claim religious values as the foundation of the American experiment miss the point. Religion will take us back to the dark ages..The parallels between the Inquisition and the war on terror have been well pronounced to those who have eyes to see.
March 6th, 2005 at 10:31 am
A find homily based on an appropriate text. Thanks
March 6th, 2005 at 11:15 am
As someone who has been told she is immoral because of not being a Christian, this is definitely a hot button for me. I was once told, when I was doing a presentation, that I “must be a great Christian” because I do volunteer work. What?
I personally think that the conflation of morality and religion has probably done more to foster hatred and violence than any other single thing. Even moreso than dividing by nationality. We can gin up much deeper animosity and willingness to destroy the other when we know we have God on our side.
March 6th, 2005 at 11:17 am
I’m all for non-sectarian moral values that are a product of secualr rather than religious discourse.
However, your notion of “religion” as something consisting of prayer, piety church attendance and missionary work is distinctly Christian. The Rabbis who reinterpreted the “Old Testament” in Mishnah and the Talmud show a distinct aversion to the death penalty, making it all but impossible to apply in the Jewish legal framework. Yet their notion of religion (a term that does not actually exist in the Hebrew Bible) involves the ritualization and sanctification of quotidian existence.
There is no need for you find any appeal in the Jewish religion. I mention it to point out just how sectarian your secularism sounds to someone like myself who does not share your background. I’m also bringing it up because your supercessionist rubric, which repudiates an “unseen supernatural being” and the “nit-picky” prescriptions of the “Old Testament,” reeks of Christian antisemitism, whether you intend it or not.
I’m curious why your invitation for all to join you in a universal secular morality does not include Jews among the other religionists you think to list. I could be wrong, but I suspect you know more Jews than you do Hindus or Deists or Buddhists. Certainly it would depend on where you live. Still the omission seems strange in light of your last three paragraphs where you rehearse Christian caricatures of Judaism.
March 6th, 2005 at 12:06 pm
I’m afraid I don’t really see your point, Ben?
The way I read this post, it’s about the problem of basing the moral standards of a society on any religious view, in this specific case, Christianity.
Of course Judaism is something more and else than what’s in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, but why is that relevant to this issue? - There is no mention made of Judaism in the post whatsoever.
A lot of criticism of Christianity, especially the right wing kind, that puts a lot of emphasis on the Old Testament, sure, and some of the religious worldview in general, but I really find it hard to see the “rehearsal of Christian charicatures of Judaism.”
This I agree with completely, though:
March 6th, 2005 at 12:19 pm
Don’t read anything into the fact that Judaism was left off the list — if I’d tried to list every single cult, sect, denomination, and god, I’d never finish the thing.
March 6th, 2005 at 12:33 pm
Arthur Clarke said (from memory):
March 6th, 2005 at 12:33 pm
Good as far as it goes but here’s the thing: if any of those moral values whether secular or religious actually mean a damn thing at all then we have to say that the religious right are evil. They are not moral and don’t have moral values in either sense. They are hate filled violent bigoted greedy assholes, liars and cheats. What’s the point of talking about moral values without moral judgement?
If hate is accepted as just as much a “moral value” as compassion then the word doesn’t have two meanings — it has no meaning at all.
March 6th, 2005 at 12:50 pm
I blame them both.
March 6th, 2005 at 1:19 pm
I’m not sure if there is such a thing as “secular morality,” as the term “ethics” seems to fit the notion better. Regardless, the process of generating a coherent set of ethics in the absence of religious authority is a difficult and complex task. Those of us who embrace the challenge are arguably better suited to behave in a “moral” fashion because we aren’t getting our ethics out of a religious screed.
Religion makes everything quick ‘n’ easy - got a question? Look it up in the big book. Anyone who willfully chooses to believe in invisible super-beings is probably unable to formulate rational conceptions of ethical conduct, and that’s why they should always be treated with extreme suspicion. And yes, our strictly Fundamentalist government displays tremendous charity and Christian sensibility by savaging the poor and the working class every chance they get.
March 6th, 2005 at 6:35 pm
Good post. A chunk of blame should be placed on the doorsteps of the “moderate” Christian churches — the Episcopalians and Presbyterians and all the rest who shudder at what’s happening but don’t get involved, don’t stand up to the mockery of their religion. What respect I once had for them (and for Amy’s point of view on this) disintegrated as it became clear that they weren’t separating themselves from the vicious power-seeking of those who call themselves conservative evangelical Christians.
March 6th, 2005 at 10:02 pm
PW, I so identify with your point about the so-called “moderate” Christian churches. Conservative evangelicals have claimed the mantle of the Christian religion for themselves, and they’ve met with zero resistance from those who should rightfully be delineating their differences from the right wing. I made the same point in the Comments section following this post about the dominionist and reconstructionist movements, but it applies across the board.
Far too many Christians have simply turned a blind eye to the hatred propagated by those who purport to share their faith. Unfortunately, it’s hardly the first time. Where are the fighters for social justice? Where are the liberal Christians? If they exist in my area, they’ve made themselves completely invisible and are apparently content to allow their religion to be hijacked by theofasscist zealots.
March 6th, 2005 at 10:14 pm
I’m not objecting to your leaving Judaism out per se. By itself, I probably would not comment on the omission, though it is a little odd to my, admittedly, Jewish way of thinking about things.
What I’m objecting to is your way of thinking about religion. You seem to define your “outspoken liberal atheism” as an absence of religion. But you’re not talking about religion in general. You’re talking about Christianity and you’re talking about the kind of Christianity that defines itself in opposition to a caricature of Judaism.
Where do I see this? Well, for starters:
The word that really does it for me is “fortunately.” That already reflects a Christian bias against the so-called “people of the Book” with their vengeful, nit-picking God. (And that, Bistroist, is where I hear PZ talking about Judaism.)
Now let’s touch upon the “more tolerant” New Testament “replacing murder etc. with conversion.” Um there was a Spanish Inquisition, right? Or to get a little more modern, there were all those wonderful turn of the century pogroms that frequently occurred on Easter and Christmas. Or to make it more personal, there were those tolerant Christians, mainly Catholics, I believe, who used to call my dad “Christ killer” while they beat him up as a kid in Boston in the 30s and 40s.
My point isn’t, however, to impugn Christianity as a whole. My point is more to say that neither Southern Baptist fundamentalists (who do indeed scare and disgust me) nor Jews “follow” the “Old Testament.” Christian fundamentalists cite Biblical prohibitions that suit them but do not use the book as any kind of code: they don’t conduct sacrifices, observe the Biblical dietary laws, refrain from mixing fabrics, etc., etc. Your narrative of how the New Testament supersedes the Old projects and anti-Jewish idea of the Hebrew Bible onto both Christians and Jews. And it is that idea of the Christian and the Jew that you reject as “religion.”
Your brand of secularism is far from universal. It depends on exclusionary Christian biases that some practicing Christians are much better at disowning.
March 7th, 2005 at 5:58 am
You are reading far, far too much into this. If you’d like, I could put in an addendum that says I don’t like Judaism, Shintoism, or Scientology to the article, if you’re feeling left out.
I mentioned some specifics of Christianity solely because I was responding to a comment by a liberal Christian. I mentioned that Christianity has changed because, well, it has. Judaism has also changed. You might accuse me of bias against “People of the Book” if I tried to tar modern Jews with the excesses of the Old Testament, but sorry, I think Judaism has moved well beyond the tribal primitivism of the old book, too.
I’m also sorry your dad was beat up. I didn’t do it. I don’t endorse it. I don’t apologize for the bigots who did it. I’m not a fan of the Christianity that fueled that kind of hatred. ‘k? I also do not approve of the Inquisition.
Anyone else want to complain because I failed to mention their personal fave superstition? Any Zoroastrians? Mormons? Satanists?
March 7th, 2005 at 7:44 am
Yeah, you left out the many, many loving arms of Cthulhu.
March 7th, 2005 at 8:04 am
PZ,
I thought your piece was good but I do think that Ben also raises a very good point. Many of us atheists come from essentially Christian backgrounds and it’s interesting to see how our perspectives may have been shaped by these influences. Leaving out Judaism from the list was probably just a simple omission - certainly if you’d thought about which religions to include in order of “representation” in our particlar society it would have been included whereas Scientology likely would not have made the cut.
But it’s not clear to me that the New Testament - whatever it says - produces more tolerance than does the OT. The Jews had a pretty good welfare system (of a sort) while Paul was hardly a tolerant type. But that’s hardly the point. Part of the OT was a concrete law that the ancient Jews were supposed to live by. The NT was never meant to be such and so, to compare the two, is at best a poor comparison. In other words, Christians still, presumably, needed actual laws and laws always look draconian when written down, in comparison to woolly statements about love and justice.
But beyond that, to take the view that what the Bible says is actually reflective of what a religion does or did, or how a society operated is perhaps a bit naive. The Inquisition happened but it certainly didn’t spring out of the NT directly. It could, however, easily have sprung out of the notion that certain people were God’s chosen and that those who ultimately didn’t convert would be sent to Gehenna or some such place.
Part of the problem is judging religion by what a book says when most religions either ignore almost completely, or distort, what their religious books state.
Ben’s point, I think, is, in part, that Christians (jn particular) labor under the mistaken belief that their beliefs are founded directly in the Bible. Ex-Christians can fall into the same trap. I’m not enough of an expert on religion to judge this point but I think it’s an interesting one that is worthy of consideration.
March 7th, 2005 at 8:34 am
If that’s how you feel about the religions you’d like to “welcome” under the Democratic Party’s banner of “tolerance” and “diversity,” why did you take the time to write this post?
I missed the part where you talked about change in Christianity. I wasn’t talking about how Judaism changed. I was talking about how it started. The stuff in the Bible isn’t Judaism. Granted that understanding of the history of religion requires a certain degree of secularism, but I thought that was where you were coming from.
Anyway, I guess what I’m wondering is why moral values must be founded on your secular belief system. Why can’t all people who share certain social values work together, regardless of how they arrived at their common ground? Sure, you may want to draw the line somewhere, but you seem to be drawing it right at the edge of your toes.
March 7th, 2005 at 8:47 am
I am saying that we must advance shared values, regardless of the belief system of the person pushing them. “Do not kill” is a good value, one supported by most religions, and also entirely compatible with secular values–supporting that will not alienate anyone, except maybe those religions who want to restore virgin sacrifice. “Do not worship idols” is a silly one; if you want to argue that Democrats should have a plank against idol worship and working on the Sabbath (ooh, we could have fun fighting over which day is the sabbath, couldn’t we?), you’re going to have a grand time wasting our efforts.
The reason we should center our values on secular ideals is because they are far more inclusive than any religion. Secularism is a good thing. Would you want to be a member of a party that made the claim that Jesus was Messiah part of their tenets? I sure wouldn’t. How about one that says it is our duty to help the poor? Hey, that one’s OK.
March 7th, 2005 at 10:29 am
Religion may well be succinctly defined in a dictionary, but it is a vast, complex term and this is exactly the kind of stationary to-and-fro that typically occurs when one challenges its validity or utility. Secular humanism can be discussed without necessarily denigrating religion and vice versa. It’s a delicate balance of which both sides could stand to be more mindful, for what lies in that balance is nothing less than the common thread which unites all humankind.
March 7th, 2005 at 11:55 am
Most of the atheists I know pretty specificaly disbelieve in the God of Protestants.
The rest of the pantheons (including those with a single entitiy that wrestled with a nomad named Abraham) just get ignored unless there is some specific question.
March 7th, 2005 at 1:47 pm
When have I or your original straw woman, Amy Sullivan, ever suggested institutionalizing religious worship or theology as part of the Democratic platform?
When have you heard me oppose political dialog based in secular discourse?
March 7th, 2005 at 2:04 pm
When has anyone accused you of doing so?
March 7th, 2005 at 2:37 pm
Bistroist,
In response to my commnet no. 20, PZ wrote
and
I’m trying to understand what I or Amy Sullivan have said that would elicit those responses.
March 8th, 2005 at 7:55 am
Jesus Christ Ben! OK - I am a Jewish Atheist - and if you actually read the torah and the new testament you come to the conclusion that god was blood-thirsty in the old testament and is touchy-feely in the new testament. The difference is a fact, it does not mean that jews are blood-thirsty, or that christians are touchy-feely - just that their god is. You need to get over yourself, and stop forcing yourself to see yourself as persecuted by everyone.
March 8th, 2005 at 9:28 am
The problem with monotheism in the first place is that the absolute isn’t one. We just hadn’t developed the concept of the equilibrium yet. Top is simply an extreme, the highest point reached. It is the base which is the source out of which balanced forces rise, be they matter/anti-matter, or yin and yang.
So the spiritual absolute is the essennce out of which we rise and to which we fall, not a state of being from which we fell and seek to return.
Knowledge is just a process of distinction and judgment.
We have just confused point of focus with source.
March 8th, 2005 at 12:44 pm
Mazal tov on your Atheism, Cheeto. Is that a qualification to bristle when people want to discuss the history of antisemitism? I don’t know if I’d call myself an atheist, but I am a secular, practicing Jew, for whatever that’s worth.
You’re almost making the same point I am: that the Bible does not describe the religions that are based on it.
If you actually read some history, you come to the conclusion that a long standing Christian justification for persecuting Jews has been their less evolved God of vengence who is emblematic of an uncivilized, dirty and sinister people.
If you read my blog, you’ll see that, if what I write is any indicator, I spend very little time forcing myself to see myself as persecuted by anyone.
I commented here because I am suspicious of claims to universalism that depend on comparisons of one’s self to false images of others. I am also suspicious when people espouse a universalism that requires others to believe as the espousers do in order to be welcomed into the conversation.
What started out as statements by PZ about the “only way” to encompass one and all, religious and secular alike, ended as a screed against the dangers of allowing people with religious beliefs to influence the Democratic Party and a denigration of such beliefs to “personal fave superstitions.”
March 8th, 2005 at 1:24 pm
Unfortunately, it looks like your persecution complex got the better of you here. “Secular” does not mean “anti-Christian” or “anti-specific sect”, but that seems to have been your immediate interpretation. I still don’t understand what you were complaining about.
March 8th, 2005 at 7:09 pm
I know what secular means. Where have I said that it means anti-anything?