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March 15, 2007

Consider the Heavens

Sam Harris writes today in a Los Angeles Times op-ed piece entitled, "God's Dupes," that moderate religious believers give cover to fanatics. He arranges believers along a spectrum from the "truest of true believers" (or "maniacs"), to the "pious multitudes who respect the beliefs of their more deranged brethren but who disagree with them on small points of doctrine," to "religious moderates and liberals." Though the last group views others within their religious structure as too dogmatic or rigid in their beliefs, Harris says, they inadvertently shelter the "fanatics" from criticism and perpetuate the notion that goodness comes only from their god.

People of all faiths — and none — regularly change their lives for the better, for good and bad reasons. And yet such transformations are regularly put forward as evidence in support of a specific religious creed. President Bush has cited his own sobriety as suggestive of the divinity of Jesus. No doubt Christians do get sober from time to time — but Hindus (polytheists) and atheists do as well. How, therefore, can any thinking person imagine that his experience of sobriety lends credence to the idea that a supreme being is watching over our world and that Jesus is his son?

There is no question that many people do good things in the name of their faith — but there are better reasons to help the poor, feed the hungry and defend the weak than the belief that an Imaginary Friend wants you to do it. Compassion is deeper than religion. As is ecstasy. It is time that we acknowledge that human beings can be profoundly ethical — and even spiritual — without pretending to know things they do not know.

What seems to bother Harris even more is that "every one of the world's 'great' religions utterly trivializes the immensity and beauty of the cosmos.'" I would agree that all the great religions have tended to promulgate inaccuracies about the universe, but I do recall David's appreciation of it in Psalm 8:3,4: "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him?" If you think about it, failing to appreciate the wonders and vastness of creation is probably one of the greatest blasphemies toward the Creator, no matter what your perception of God is.

Perhaps the greatest fault of the great religions is in focusing so much attention on human behavior and "worldly" things that they don't consider the heavens and their place in it as they ought. It is an extremely humbling experience to study astronomy. That humility in the face of unfathomable majesty ought to inspire believer and non-believer to a greater level of kindness and compassion for the entire spectrum of living things here on this planet. Sadly, the ultra-religious aren't spending enough time looking up.

Posted by Becky at March 15, 2007 08:42 AM