{"id":155,"date":"2014-02-10T22:29:24","date_gmt":"2014-02-10T16:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/?p=155"},"modified":"2014-02-10T22:29:37","modified_gmt":"2014-02-10T16:29:37","slug":"forget-the-map-just-drive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/2014\/02\/10\/forget-the-map-just-drive\/","title":{"rendered":"Forget the map. Shut up and drive."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"4way\"<\/a>I heard this today:\u00a0 All paths lead up the same mountain, so it doesn\u2019t matter which one you take.\u00a0 Our time is better spent climbing, rather than circling the base telling everyone else they\u2019re on the wrong path.<\/p>\n

There were knowing chuckles of approval as this familiar trope hit home.\u00a0 Oprah likes it and Bush has expressed versions of it in interviews.\u00a0 The hope is that, while religions and people are flawed, we share a common yearning for the transcendent.\u00a0 The real, Almighty God is not a Christian, a Muslim or anything else.\u00a0 He is God (whatever that means) and rewards all who honestly seek Him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is an idea that offers hope in a world riven by religious differences.\u00a0 If we can\u2019t find common ground, our prospects for peace aren\u2019t good.\u00a0 It reminds us that, despite our conflicting creeds, we\u2019re all really of one mind and one purpose, to find and follow the one, true God.\u00a0 For this idea to heal us, though, it really has to be true.\u00a0 There is too much at stake for us to accept a false comfort based on a false unity.\u00a0 So let\u2019s unpack it and see if it holds up.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m as socially liberal as they come, but I\u2019m intellectually conservative.\u00a0 This makes me reluctant to invoke supernaturalism as an explanation for anything.\u00a0 To a methodical, reserved thinker, supernaturalism is an extravagant leap that creates more problems than it solves.\u00a0 But I recognize that most people go to supernaturalism easily.\u00a0 It fits well with their values and psychology to say \u201cGod did it\u201d or \u201cGod loves me\u201d and things like that.\u00a0 I consider such statements to be gigantically overreaching, going way beyond what we can honestly claim to know.\u00a0 So, this idea excludes about a billion nonbelievers who are climbing another mountain, or none at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

But for those who do believe in God, this metaphor is attractive, so let\u2019s walk a little further.\u00a0 Anyone who has ever hiked knows that all paths don\u2019t lead to the top, and those that do aren\u2019t equivalent.\u00a0 All of us make judgments about which path to take and we know there are right and wrong answers.\u00a0 This is uncontroversial.\u00a0 If we are new to an area, we often consult a map and we are grateful if there is someone on the trail to tell us we\u2019re going the wrong way.\u00a0 It is only in religion that we like to say that all paths lead to the top.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We do this, of course, because we value avoiding conflict more than just about anything else.\u00a0 If someone is taking the long way, who am I to accost him and tell him there\u2019s a better way?\u00a0 I might offend him or he might get angry.\u00a0 Why risk it?\u00a0 If he asks, I might tell him which way I think is best, but I\u2019ll be careful not to insinuate that I know more than he does.<\/span><\/p>\n

Next, this idea won\u2019t be palatable to fundamentalists or conservative believers at all.\u00a0 To them, there are core beliefs that make their religion what it is.\u00a0 If all paths lead to the top, this means that they converge and that there is very little room up there.\u00a0 As we climb, our fellow travelers come into view around us.\u00a0 We can see the beliefs they are carrying.\u00a0 To make room, we all have to discard chunks of creed and dogma as we approach the top.\u00a0 If one person thinks God is simply Nature, and another believes He is Yahweh, they can\u2019t both be right.\u00a0 In the logical space near the top, there is not room for both beliefs.\u00a0 To converge and inhabit the same locale, both hikers have to jettison baggage.\u00a0 The Yahweh guy might have to give up intervening in human affairs, and the Nature guy has to add some sentience or something to move closer to the Yahweh-picture.\u00a0 As with many compromises, both views get hollowed out, no one wins and the resulting God is something no one envisioned.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our idea might even survive all this, but now we begin to see more consequences of this approach.\u00a0 If all paths lead up the same mountain, then none of the world\u2019s religions have it right.\u00a0 The One, True God has to be something that is in some way compatible with each of them, but doesn\u2019t exclude any of them.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve ever tried to schedule a meeting for even 4 people, you know how hard this is.\u00a0 And it\u2019s sure to exclude nonbelievers and the fundamentalists of all religions.\u00a0 Only the most liberal, flexible and undoctrinal people will be able to ascend to such airy heights.\u00a0 And their accomplishment is going to be equally vacuous.\u00a0 The only \u201cGod\u201d who can survive such treatment is an empty one, a null god which offends no one.\u00a0 He probably would have to have no traits at all, since even a trait like \u201cLove\u201d would cause some people to defect, since his grace doesn\u2019t seem to be equally distributed.\u00a0 We have embraced Him out of existence.\u00a0 Death by committee.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am passionate about learning how to live together and build the good life for as many of our human family as possible.\u00a0 But comforting reassurances like this one don\u2019t help.\u00a0 They tell us there is no problem when there is one.\u00a0 Some religious diversity can be embraced, but it can not all be reconciled without eviscerating each tradition, and this is not the kind of reconciliation anyone wants.\u00a0 As a nonbeliever, perhaps I should be content with people holding such neutered beliefs.\u00a0 They are certainly preferable to noxious fundamentalism.\u00a0 So, I’ll say ok, perhaps.\u00a0 As long as faith remains subordinate to humanistic values.\u00a0 What could enforce that stricture?\u00a0 We already have something and it works very well:\u00a0 social pressure.\u00a0 No one believes the Earth is flat anymore.\u00a0 There’s no law against it, it’s simply so marginalized that education is all it takes to correct this belief.\u00a0 Faith healing, female genital mutilation and discrimination against homosexuals should get the same treatment.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is natural to be optimistic and I applaud the peacemakers among us.\u00a0 But our ecumenical efforts have to be grounded and realistic.\u00a0 We liberals are rightly accused of being na\u00efve and glossing over difficult issues.\u00a0 No adult wants that kind of treatment from her doctor; we don\u2019t want comfort, we want the facts.\u00a0 Likewise, we can\u2019t reduce the fever of our religious conflicts with palliatives.\u00a0 We have to face the fact that, as long as we demand the freedom to believe whatever we want, unconstrained by natural, scientific bases, then others will exercise it, too.\u00a0 And with it, they can justify behaving in ways that don\u2019t help us live together.\u00a0 Religious belief is sanctifying but indiscriminate.\u00a0 It needs humanistic constraints to avoid malignancy.<\/span><\/p>\n

The faith mechanism divides us into the fractured world we see around us.\u00a0 Our beliefs may be harmless, but endorsing faith itself provides sanction for honor killing, oppression of women, etc.\u00a0 The believers who practice those things are guiltless within their faith.\u00a0 This should bother us.\u00a0 There should be no religious justification for abridging the rights of others, but there it is.\u00a0 What shall we do, then?\u00a0 Give up faith?\u00a0 The social contract requires that we give up many liberties to live together.\u00a0 The result is a better life for everyone.\u00a0 It is not enough that our own beliefs be peaceful.\u00a0 The method we use to reach them must be peaceful, too.\u00a0 We now have abundant data on the fruits of faith.\u00a0 The results are often peaceful, but the loopholes are large.\u00a0 If we love our faith, we can not condemn another’s.\u00a0 Yet, this is exactly what we have to do when faith tells people to harm others.<\/span><\/p>\n

Are we to throw out the baby with the bathwater?\u00a0 Is there a way to keep just the good kind of faith?\u00a0 Yes and no.\u00a0 We have been doing this in recent history, as plain old tribal values have pruned the more brutal practices from our faith traditions.\u00a0 \u00a0But then, we have to ask, where do we get our values?\u00a0 If our natural values are actually curtailing our religious ones, then our values aren\u2019t coming from our faith.\u00a0 We had them all along, and when the political climate made it safe to resist inhumane religious practices, we did so.\u00a0 At some point, many of us realized that the good in religion can survive without faith, and the bad in religion can not.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I heard this today:\u00a0 All paths lead up the same mountain, so it doesn\u2019t matter which one you take.\u00a0 Our time is better spent climbing, rather than circling the base telling everyone else they\u2019re on the wrong path. There were knowing chuckles of approval as this familiar trope hit home.\u00a0 Oprah likes it and Bush […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}