Random Reflections on Religion – 2

My wife and I have been digging into the lectures and writings of noted philosopher and atheist Peter Boghossian over the past few weeks, especially his idea that religion is a delusion and a “mind virus”.  It seems that anyone who is any way religious is mentally ill.  As devout Christians, that applies to my wife and me.  Now, my wife may have good reason to accuse me of mental illness, but I must protest against Professor Bogghossian diagnosing me without the benefit of an examination.  Standing thus accused, or perhaps diagnosed, I offer up the following in my defense.  

It must be granted that religion has been around for a very long time, long before written records could preserve the origins of religion.  Since religious writings must be the result of delusion and illness, their account of their own origins cannot be trusted.  Therefore the origins of religion are lost, leaving us to speculate.  So let’s speculate a bit.  If religion is a delusion or a “mind virus” where did the delusion or virus come from?  Who was the first person that suffered from these maladies and why or how would those maladies be passed down?  Is it reasonable to believe that such maladies would be embraced by a pre-historic, pre-religious society?  I confess that I have my doubts.

Going back to the previous random thought on religion, let’s consider the first moment when pre-historic man might have been able to conceive of and communicate religious ideas.  Thag, Gronk, Snorg, and their fellows are huddling in the cave against the elements, watching a thunderstorm.  Thag, in a feverish fit, suffering greatly from hunger, thirst, fleas, and any other number of ailments, finally snaps and becomes delusional, creating from whole cloth gods of thunder and storm, not to mention fleas.  He cries out in his anguish, beseeching these gods to cease their persecution of him, begging them for relief, offering them anything if they will let him be.  Do Gronk and Snorg look on him, amazed, seeing wisdom in his wild words, asking him to elaborate on these strange ideas, and choose to offer with him some sacrifice to appease the god of fleas so they can sleep soundly?  

Hardly.  Gronk and Snorg are much more likely to pick up the nearest rock and crease Thag’s skull.  This is weakness, surely, and a danger to the tribe.  It cannot be allowed to spread.  They have seen the herds of buffalo or mammoths.  They have observed the wolf pack.  They know what a weak member of either means, and it’s not good.  The delusional Thag, suffering from his mind virus, will be thrown to the fore-mentioned wolf pack and good riddance to him.  So much for religion.

This is a tongue-in-cheek examination of the concept, but the idea remains.  How would something as radically new to humanity as a god and religion, something that was delusional or symptomatic of a “mind-virus”, arise and spread.  Is it contagious?  Did all of humanity suffer from a mass delusion simultaneously?  And were there no skeptics?  Even if Snorg did not hurl Thag from the nearest cliff, would he have accepted the god of thunder and the accompanying restrictive religion without question or without evidence?  Why would he be more credulous than Professor Boghossian?

Granted, the topic is more complicated than can be addressed in a blog post, which is why the good professor has dedicated whole books to it, but I don’t think he has addressed the underlying issue here to my satisfaction.  Until he does, I will stick to the rational, intellectually consistent, absolute truth of Christianity.

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Random Reflections on Religion – 1

Being Christians, the topic of religion is rarely far from our family’s conversation menu. During one recent discussion, a new idea came to me that we batted around for a while. It’s an extension of C.S. Lewis’ argument that it is impossible for human imagination to create God if He does not already exist and has not revealed Himself.

Let’s take the atheistic explanation that man created God and religion as given for the sake of argument. With that in mind, what it would mean for man, a man, a prehistoric human male, to create a god and a religion to go with it. What would that god and religion be like, and what would it require? I doubt it would bear any resemblance whatsoever to the Judeo-Christian God and religions.

Why not? Put yourself into the shoes of a prehistoric human male at the time when reason, imagination, and language have progressed to where the idea of religion can be communicated, but man is still at his most barbaric. Next, consider just one aspect of the moral code derived from religion: specifically, what do men want with regard to women? Do men naturally desire monogamy? Do they naturally desire commitment? Left to himself, without external constraints, what man or group of men would devise a religion that would even conceive of those notions, let alone a god that would enforce them? The shot is just not on the board.

Look beyond the Judeo-Christian traditions to the religions, gods, and goddesses throughout the world and the history of mankind, and what do you find? For the most part, you find marriage, monogamy, and commitment. Greco-Roman, Norse, Babylonian, indigenous American, Pacific island, what have you, all of these traditions honor monogamy, chastity, and fidelity in male-female relationships. Their myths dwell at length on the behavior of the gods and goddesses, especially the jealousy of the goddesses if their husband-gods stray. Hera/Juno is a particularly vivid example. She is the goddess of marriage and the hearth. Her reactions to infidelity are, quite literally, the stuff of legend. What man would have invented that? Would he not rather have created stories of how women should not be jealous of men who stray?

If we’re honest with ourselves, we will admit that, if human men were to create a religion free from external revelation, it would be one that celebrated full sexual license, placing no constraints on men and no consequences. One that freed him from the responsibility of children. It would look very much like what is observed in the non-religious world today, only with the endorsement of whatever gods man had created. How odd that men did not create it sooner. All of this only in the context of just one aspect of religious morality. Expand that beyond sexual behavior and the principal holds. Most of the ten commandments would be very nearly turned on their heads.

So, the next time someone suggests that man created god in his own image, or something along those lines, ask whomever said such a ridiculous thing what a man-made god would really look like. It’s not a pretty thought, but it might be enlightening.

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