David Brooks doesn't get it.

New York Times columnist David Brooks thinks secularists are disadvantaged compared to Christian and Jewish believers. Consider the tasks a person would have to perform to live secularism well:

Secular individuals have to build their own moral philosophies. Religious people inherit creeds that have evolved over centuries. Autonomous secular people are called upon to settle on their own individual sacred convictions.

Secular individuals have to build their own communities. Religions come equipped with covenantal rituals that bind people together, sacred practices that are beyond individual choice. Secular people have to choose their own communities and come up with their own practices to make them meaningful.

Secular individuals have to build their own Sabbaths. Religious people are commanded to drop worldly concerns. Secular people have to create their own set times for when to pull back and reflect on spiritual matters.

Secular people have to fashion their own moral motivation. It’s not enough to want to be a decent person. You have to be powerfully motivated to behave well. Religious people are motivated by their love for God and their fervent desire to please Him. Secularists have to come up with their own powerful drive that will compel sacrifice and service.

This is nonsense. First of all, there is a deep history of understanding justice and morality that is not connected to Judeo-Christian practice -- all ancient cultures had a set of rules and the commonality of those rules indicates that they speak to something clearly deeply human. He goes on,

The point is not that secular people should become religious. You either believe in God or you don’t. Neither is the point that religious people are better than secular people. That defies social science evidence and common observation. The point is that an age of mass secularization is an age in which millions of people have put unprecedented moral burdens upon themselves. People who don’t know how to take up these burdens don’t turn bad, but they drift. They suffer from a loss of meaning and an unconscious boredom with their own lives.

What complete rubbish. People who don't know how to take up burdens...as if we have to re-invent a moral and ethical framework from scratch?  That's clearly wrong.

 Daniel Maguire also takes him on, arguing in a twist that Christian ethics don't require a belief in God--rather, they can be viewed as a cultural inheritance that many of us share.

That epic moral vision that was birthed in ancient Israel and echoed into Christianity doesn’t require deity or afterlife beliefs

Indeed many professing Christians might be dogmatically orthodox moral heretics. They take the dogmatic legends literally and fervidly but are less enthused about the moral demands of the tradition. Thus they would smite you for not taking literally such metaphors as Exodus, Virgin Birth, and Resurrection but will not join Isaiah in saying that the only route to peace is through the absolute elimination of poverty. (Isaiah 32;17). Nor are they, as was Jesus, “good news for the poor” or “peacemakers.” (Luke 4:18: Matt. 5:9)

In a splendid irony, secularists who walk the walk on these ideals might be more “Christian” than the “dogmatically” pure.

For Brooks, to be religious you have to believe in “God,” which is way off the mark. Religion is a response to the sacred—whether the sacred is understood theistically or not.

Paul Kowalewski at the Desert Retreat House disagrees with Brooks as well, particularly over his binary of "you believe in God or you don't":

From my perspective, "God" is essentially a Great Riddle, an unknowable mystery, an Abiding Presence at the core of everting that is. From time to time, in the thin places of life, I experience that Holy Presence, but I can never explain it and I never think of God as some sort of separated superior super person. In that sense atheists and I both don't believe in the same imaginary being.

When it comes to religion, I find great value in being connected with my ancestors in a tradition of faith carried on over the ages. I also believe that being in relationship with other persons of faith strengthens me. ....

And yes, I do love the stories in the Bible and yes I think they are mostly legends and myths filled with metaphor and poetry - but that's the kind of language that is always used whenever we try to talk about great mysteries. So, while my beliefs may appear to be paradoxical, I do not at all think that they contradict one another- that's what "both-and" thinking is all about.

And finally, I like this quote from Karen Armstrong:

Religion is not about accepting twenty impossible propositions before breakfast, but about doing things that change you. It is a moral aesthetic, an ethical alchemy. If you behave in a certain way, you will be transformed. The myths and laws of religion are not true because they they conform to some metaphysical, scientific or historical reality but because they are life enhancing. They tell you how human nature functions, but you will not discover their truth unless you apply these myths and doctrines to your own life and put them into practice.”   The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness 

The idea of the value of religion being less about faith per se and more about a shared cultural community of myth and meaning resonates with me, as I continue my own journey. 

 

Why people vote the way they do (2)

An interesting view of why American conservative voters apparently vote against their own economic interests.   According to this writer, it's because their other values supersede the economic.  (My emphasis)

But are voters really voting against their self-interest when they vote for candidates who share their values? Loyalty, respect for authority and some degree of sanctification create a more binding social order that places some limits on individualism and egoism. As marriage rates plummet, and globalization and rising diversity erodes the sense of common heritage within each nation, a lot of voters in many western nations find themselves hungering for conservative moral cuisine.

....The left typically thinks of equality as being central to fairness, and leftists are extremely sensitive about gross inequalities of outcome – particularly when they correspond along racial or ethnic lines. But the broader meaning of fairness is really proportionality – are people getting rewarded in proportion to the work they put into a common project? Equality of outcomes is only seen as fair by most people in the special case in which everyone has made equal contributions. The conservative media (such as the Daily Mail, or Fox News in the US) is much more sensitive to the presence of slackers and benefit cheats. They are very effective at stirring up outrage at the government for condoning cheating.

...

In sum, the left has a tendency to place caring for the weak, sick and vulnerable above all other moral concerns. It is admirable and necessary that some political party stands up for victims of injustice, racism or bad luck. But in focusing so much on the needy, the left often fails to address – and sometimes violates – other moral needs, hopes and concerns. When working-class people vote conservative, as most do in the US, they are not voting against their self-interest; they are voting for their moral interest. They are voting for the party that serves to them a more satisfying moral cuisine. The left in the UK and USA should think hard about their recipe for success in the 21st century.

Our previous discussion on this topic here (read the comments).  More on this tomorrow, with another view.

Moral Mondays

"Moral Mondays" are the efforts by faith leaders in North Carolina to call attention to the extremist right wing agenda of their state legislature that injures the poor and least amongst us.  This sums up the hypocrisy of the "Christian" right:

As the senators bowed their heads for an opening prayer, introduced a new crop of pages, and began the evening’s business, the protestors filed by, hundreds upon hundreds, totally quiet, pressing their signs up to the glass—signs about fracking, and women’s rights, and health care reform. “Jesus wept … and so do we.” “In-state tuition for dreamers.” “God wants justice and compassion for the poor.” The senators didn’t look up. 

Whose morality?

We've talked previously at length about the new "religious freedom" argument from the right, that somehow THEIR religious freedom means they must be allowed to disadvantage others.

Now, let's take this to its logical conclusion.  Today, word came of an allegation that a Catholic hospital refused a gay man his HIV meds because the doctor felt that  "This [HIV] is what he gets for going against God’s will."  Think about it.  A physician disapproves of a man's life, and denies him life-saving medication because he offends her faith.  If true, this allegation exposes the utter hypocrisy and moral vacuum of these "life-affirming" religionists.  It is not a far reach from this to calls to kill the gays-- or the blacks, or the Jews.

But let us ignore this egregious and disturbing allegation in a single case, and look at the broader issue.

From the HuffPo:

Conservatives have spent generations accusing liberals of moral relativism and "anything goes" indulgence in their feelings or whims. But is a belief -- no matter how ennobled by the protective mantle of institutional religion, historical longevity or broad popularity -- any less arbitrary of a foundation for the giving or taking away of people's rights? In order to be a legitimate basis for public policy, does the assertion of a belief need to be paired with an empirical argument about the impact of the proposed policy that the belief is being cited to justify?
…..
The religious right has had great success in casting issues of sexuality and health as "moral issues," a conscious conflation of morality with religion. It's time to hold those who perpetuate this confusion accountable for the imprecision of their ideas, and for what amounts to a demand that virtually anything goes, so long as someone "believes" it's okay. If you're going to throw the "m" word around -- morality -- you should have to make the case for how the action in question is harming society. The word of God is no longer enough.

Does God allow a physician who disapproves of gay people essentially to sentence them to death?