Variety of Religion and Atheism

One of my major peeves is when people dump on religion indiscriminately, and it’s been a good couple of weeks for people getting between my teeth. First, here at Thudfactor, was “Echolalias”:http://www.thudfactor.com/wordpress/2006/06/17/dark-christianity/. Try as I might, I still can’t see how her argument amounts to anything but a stirring defense of bigotry. And then there was the aggressively ignorant thread at the “Martian Anthropologist”:http://townofautumn.com/blog/2006/06/22/the-ocean-of-space-and-time/.

I can always tell when I have an ignorant atheist on the line. They start sentences with “Religion is.” There are very few substantive sentences that can begin “religion is.” That’s because religion is (_hah_) deep, complicated, and diverse. Most of what such athiests have come in contact with is a minority group of evangelical Christians, and so they use “religion” and “evangelical Christian” interchangeably. Or worse, they believe there are _no significant differences_ between other religions and evangelical Christianity — a position that is symptomatic of never having read a book dealing with the subject.

When I have the energy for it, I try to counter this whenever I see it. It tends to be slow going, but I _have_ had some victories. But as a result of that, I’ve seen a pattern among the responses to the fact of religious diversity. Usually this is buried in comments threads or happens over email, though, so I thought I’d outline them in a blog post for easier reference.

Responses tend to fall into these categories, which I’ve ordered based on annoyance.

# You’re right, religion is very diverse. I misspoke, and my statements are directed at _X_.
# Christianity is the major religion and therefore the only one of interest; so I use Christianity and religion as synonyms.
# If other religions want to be recognized, they need to speak more loudly.
# It’s not my job to understand the differences between all religions.
# So what, all religions suck.

People who respond with the first position make me happy and they are not badgered by me. People who take the last position are bigots arguing from a position of total and self-imposed ignorance, and are a complete lost cause. We don’t need to deal with either of those any further.

Response two (_Christianity is the major religion and therefore the only one of interest_) may have been a marginally acceptable, if still functionally incorrect, response twenty years ago. Of course, the first problem with it is that Christianity is far from homgenous — and if you, as an atheist, think it is, then you have been letting the Dominionists define Christians for you and “I want to know why”:http://www.thudfactor.com/wordpress/2006/06/20/christianity-in-moderation/. But that’s not even the half of it.

It is true that most people one is likely to come in contact with in English-speaking environments are Christian, but that is going to change. A more mobile population in conjunction with the expanded communication avenues provided by the Internet dramatically increases one’s exposure to other faiths. I’ve never seen any set of numbers (”like these”:http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html) that could be more than back-of-the-napkin accuracy, but Christianity is, at best, a large minority. And the chances that there’ll be someone _non-Christian_ in the audience is greatly increased. When you say “religion is” and then describe a Southern Baptist point of view, a Buddhist is going to think you pretty ignorant. And with reason. The extent to which that person speaks up brings us to …:

Response three (_if positions other than conservative Christianity want to be recognized, they need to speak more loudly_) is true to a certain extent, and more people who are not evangelical — including some flavors of traditionally evangelical religions, like Christianity — are coming to realize they have to be more vocal to keep people like Falwell from defining them. The interesting thing about this response, though, is it is usually made in response to a differing opinion being loudly expressed[1].

It’s not as though much of this information is underground, though — there are stacks and stacks of books and web sites which are available. There are a number of interfaith organizations, religious tolerance groups, and people speaking out in opposition to Fundamentalism’s claim to speak for all religious people. Since atheism purports to be a rational, reality-based position, it seems odd to judge the _existence_ of a differing viewpoint based on that position’s politcal clout, especially when the differing viewpoints have a non-theocratic impluse. Speaking of reality-based…

Response four (_It’s not my job to understand the differences between all religions_) is a tell-tale argument. It says the atheist in question is not expressing a viewpoint on religion as much as a predjudice. It is also missing the point. It is not neccessary to understand all religions except in the extraordinary — and foolhardy — case that one wants to make a sweeping statement about all religions.

All that is required is a recognition that there _are_ significant differences between religions, and that (for example) a criticism of Conservative Christianity might not be operative in ancestor worship. The same goes for subgroups — surface-level appearances to the contrary, Christianity is a wildly diverse faith encompassing everything from theocratic Ron Luce-style dominionism to gay socialist Christian Buddhists. You don’t need to know the intricacies, but it’s not too much to ask that you acknowledge that a criticism of the former may not be operative against the latter.

I do not believe that all religions, all religious beliefs, and all religious positions deserve equal respect. But I do believe in being accurate and focused in any criticisms. And if you want to take a position, it is your responsibility to understand what it is you are judging before you judge it.

fn1. On the Martian Anthropoligist thread, I pointed this out — and the unintentionally hillarious response was “I didn’t mean be more loud _here_.” Well….?