Religion?

There is an early, unexpected theme I'm hearing from people who have read the book (yes - its brand new and I'm delighted to say someone other than my wife has read the book:-). It goes something like this:

"Love the book. Very thought provoking. Hope it has legs as it would be good for all of us to read [paraphrasing - not fabricating:-)]...couldn't help but notice one thing. I wonder how all this relates to religion? For a while, when you were talking to Randi about your mother's "faith-healing" experience, I thought you were going to 'go there'; but you didn't."

Inherent in there is a question. No one who knows me has ever seen me fail to fall for the bait - and enter my 2 cents worth - so why stop now. The fact is, I've even had a pastor say he's going to "teach" my book after he finishes the Purpose Driven Life, by Rick Warren (no offense, but that was a book I simply couldn't get into, despite the 37 copies I've been given). I'm delighted because this pastor is a wonderful guy, intellectually honest, loving, and bright. Indeed I'm honored he's found value in the book.

Okay, so here comes my controversial 2 cents worth. Isn't it just as likely as in every other aspect of life - health, investments, business, career, interpersonal relationships - that we are capable of believing wacky or untrue things when it comes to religious beliefs? After all, do we go listen to alternative viewpoints? Hang out at the synagogue if we are Christian or Muslim? Don't we base our beliefs on conventional wisdom and the teachings of those around us?

Most scholars agree that Christ was not born on Dec.25th, and that it was likely 3-5 B.C., for instance. But I'll bet many folks accept as true fact that it was Dec. 25th and year "zero". Granted it this is a simple example, but hopefully you get my point. It is quite likely that we don't have nearly the "truth" we think we do with regard to matters of religion.

Isn't it just as likely as in other parts of life, if not more so, that we emotionally bias our religious views to affirm what we already "know" to be true? Is it possible that some parts of all religions are "of man" rather than "of God?" It sure seems clear to me that many parts are indeed "of man".

In fact, I will go this far in the interest of intellectual honesty (didn't take too much prodding did it). Please don't burn down my house over this, I'm just being honest.  Many theologians, though a minority, would ask this question with me. Isn't it is equally as unlikely that Jesus was born of a virgin, as it is that the 911 hijackers get to spend eternity with 100 virgins for murdering 3,000 people? Or that during communion the wine literally turns into Christ's blood and the bread literally turns into his body? Under the principal of Acham's Razor, which says the simplest solution is usually the correct one, the odds seem to favor the simpler solutions (just my opinion). Actually, if anything the "100 virgins" is the least troubling statement, because the other two directly fly in the face of science and the world as we observe it. The 100 virgins is a metaphysical belief - something with which I probably should  have less of a problem, and be less inclined to comment upon in terms of its truthfulness.

So YES, I do think the same biases and needs affect many of the "one true religions" in the world, and plague them with "untrue beliefs."

Really though, the larger issue is brilliantly addressed by a recent OP/ED piece written by a retired pastor, Gerald S. Diment. The article is about the debate between science and religion. Larger than that, it brilliantly addresses WHY in promoting science and reason, I have nothing great to add to the conversation about religion. In many ways I simply don't have the tools.

Mr. Diment has kindly given me permission to reprint his statements.  Here is what he said:

Great 'debate' between science and religion - By Gerald S. Diment Imagine someone who needs to do some mechanical repair on the car and selects a cookbook for information on how to do it. Or imagine someone who wants to learn how to bake a cake and chooses a book on plumbing to find out how. The great “debate” between science and religion or creation and evolution is almost as silly. Turning to the Bible for answers to scientific questions is to do a great disservice to the Bible and to misunderstand scientific method. I am saddened that so many Christians seem to have been taught that the Bible must be taken literally in all its parts or that it presents us with information consistent with what we would call “modern, western scientific method.” To do so reduces to absurdity some of the greatest passages in the Bible, words of wisdom, even divine wisdom. We seem to learn early in life to apply a correct interpretive principle to different forms of literature. For example, we have no difficulty reading, enjoying, being inspired by and understanding a poem without taking it literally. Reading Kilmer’s poem, “Trees” one would never take literally the line, “A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed against the earth’s sweet flowing breast.” We instinctively read this with a correct interpretive principle. Trees do not have mouths; the earth does not literally have a breast. But for some reason, when reading the Bible, so many Christians leave behind any semblance of interpretive principles. The Bible contains many literary forms: parable, metaphor, poetry, historical reporting, story, comparison, and more. To take them all literally may be the easy way out but when dealing with something as magnificent and important as the Bible, the easy way is, as usual, the wrong way. To reduce the first three chapters of Genesis to an historical and scientific treatise on the origin of the universe, to be taken literally, is to suck all of the life out of those incredibly important and insightful words. To read the book of Jonah as a literal account makes it almost impossible to uncover the amazing and humorous message of the book, a message as relevant today as it was the day it was written. Jonah has an incredible message for the world situation today and for America and Iraq in particular. But, to conclude that the message of Jonah is that God can, and did, save someone who was swallowed by a big fish is to utterly miss the point of the book of Jonah. I take the Bible very seriously. Although I am neither a scholar nor expert on the Bible, I have studied it in Hebrew and Greek. The magnificent opening verses of Genesis are a towering and sublime “poem” that conveys eternal truths, not scientific truths. When we who are heirs to the Greek, western, scientific worldview bring western, scientific questions to the Bible, a middle-eastern book with a very different approach to truth, we are like someone asking questions about auto mechanics of a cookbook. Personally, I see no conflict between Biblical or spiritual truth and the search for truth and “reality” through the scientific method. What troubles me about the pressure to put a “creationism” or “intelligent design” component into the school’s science curriculum is not that it will damage or corrupt the science department, but that it will damage and corrupt the “theological” department! It will perpetuate in our children a lack of understand of “hermeneutics” and “exegesis” – the art of interpretation and discovery of the deep truths contained in the Bible.