Create Your Own Religion (31 page)

As much as I can sympathize with the very real needs addressed by faith, I can't help feeling that this is an acceptable solution only for people who are driven crazy by fear and desperation. Faith, after all, elevates delusion to the status of a legitimate tool to gain knowledge. It is the offspring of a one-night stand between superstition and dogmatism. It is what happens when religions fail to teach us to develop the courage to face life and death without any certainties.

So what, Bolelli? What's the harm in that? Yes, the emphasis on faith may betray a heavy load of anxiety, a strange relationship with logic, and a remarkable flexibility when it comes to stretching the truth, but is that so bad? As long as it makes us feel better and no one gets hurt, why fuss? Isn't life hard enough to go without faith?

I'm a firm supporter of whatever helps make us happy. So, in principle, faith shouldn't bother me. As long as faith can remain open-minded, I have nothing against it. But the problem is that faith can only rarely, and through the most difficult mental contortions, be open-minded. Most of the time, it is a medicine that comes
with too many side effects. The reasons why I gladly leave faith out of my own religion are many. For the sake of simplicity, I'll focus on a couple of the main ones. After that, it's up to you to decide for yourself whether you agree with me in kicking faith to the curb, or if you find some redeeming qualities that make up for the problems faith creates.

The very premise of faith—its willingness to change the rules halfway through a game—has trouble written all over it. A healthy spirit of inquiry begins by looking at reality, examining evidence, and then drawing our conclusions. Faith does the exact opposite. It begins with a belief about the nature of things, and then goes looking for ways to make the evidence fit the belief. If it turns out that evidence supports our preconceived conclusion, great. If it doesn't, rather than revising the conclusion, faith conveniently decides that evidence doesn't matter. Since it accepts facts only as long as they confirm preexisting theories, faith is by definition the enemy of the essential requirement on which real knowledge depends: the willingness to change one's beliefs given the facts. This is not only embarrassingly dishonest, but downright dangerous.

By rejecting empirical evidence any time it challenges one's dogmas, faith is naturally at odds with science. Religion and science can dance cheek to cheek as long as religion doesn't stress the importance of a rigid faith. Whenever it does, however, problems arise. History records countless examples of religious fundamentalists coming after science with a vengeance. From the Catholic censure against the works of brilliant scientists such as Galileo and Copernicus to the
Scopes Trial of 1925 against the teaching of evolution in schools, fundamentalists have been consistently opposed to science, seeing it as a threat to faith.

Even today, plenty of believers still view scientific knowledge with suspicion. For example, in direct contradiction with archaeological findings, 48 percent of Americans like to hold on to the notion that humans were created within the last 10,000 years.
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In 2007, in a failed effort not to appear like superstitious freaks straight out of the Middle Ages, a group of American fundamentalists inaugurated the Creation Museum near Petersburg, Kentucky, a sad attempt to reconcile a literal reading of the Bible with science. Among its highlights are exhibits showing dinosaurs and humans living side by side (nevermind the dinosaurs being extinct for a few million years before humans ever showed up in the neighborhood), and others subjecting math to strange tortures to “demonstrate” how theers subjecting math to strange tortures to “demonstrate” how the meter-long Noah's Ark.
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If all of this is not weird enough, consider the case of Tom DeLay, a former Republican House Majority Leader, who blamed the epidemics of school shootings in the United States on the fact that schools teach evolution rather than Bible stories!
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If some of these examples are laughable but innocuous, others are not. Still today the Catholic Church, along with many radical Muslim organizations, condemn contraception as sinful, thereby becoming unwitting accomplices in the spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. In very real ways, when faith quarrels with science, the potential to cause tremendous suffering is extremely high.

This, however, is not the only way in which an uncompromising faith can hurt us. Since its claims are not subject to empirical tests, faith can easily turn into a tool for manipulation at the hands
of religious authorities. Even if we rule out Machiavellian conspiracies, sincere faith is often at the roots of many conflicts. It is not surprising that faith-based religions, such as Christianity and Islam, are historically tied to a much greater amount of religious wars and bloodshed than religions that do not emphasize faith. The cause for this is simple. Reason allows us to compromise, but faith rarely does. Articles of faith are beyond rational discussions and negotiations. Because of its inflexible nature, faith will make it more difficult for people to soften or adapt the stances that brought them into conflict in the first place. If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for example, was only about land, compromises may have already solved the issue. But once you add to the dispute opposing faith-based claims to the land, and a history of bloodshed, ceding even one inch becomes complicated.

In a sense, faith, by its very nature, invites fanaticism since the strongest faith is the one for which you have the least evidence. The connection between faith and dogmatism is a close one, and the next link in the chain connects dogmatism to a propensity for “holy” wars and religiously motivated violence. This is not an automatic sequence; some people of great faith are sweet, lovable individuals who would never hurt anyone. But faith nonetheless gives us a push toward a dangerous direction. As disgustingly sick as the 9/11 hijackers were, they were perfect examples of the most extreme consequences of where faith may lead: these were people whose faith was so strong they were willing to kill and die for it.

For these reasons, in my own worldview I intend to make no space for faith. I think Dr. Charles Kimball nails it on the head when he writes, “Religion that requires adherents to disconnect their brain is often a big part of the problem.”
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And too often faith asks us to do exactly that.

After all the preceding words, we are back to square one. If faith is not a prime requirement for creating a healthy religion, then what is? Typically, those who are not particularly fond of faith exalt reason instead. And vice versa; the faith groupies equate reason with arrogance. In their minds, emphasizing the power of reason is a misguided human attempt to rely on oneself rather than accepting revealed dogma. This is what prompted Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order, to state, “We sacrifice the intellect to God.”
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Despite the deep animosity that existed at that time between Catholics and Protestants, Martin Luther, the father of the Protestant movement, fully agreed with Loyola. “Reason,” Martin Luther wrote, “is the devil's harlot, who can do naught but slander and harm whatever God says and does.”
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Proving that he was deeply insecure about his own beliefs, Luther was convinced that reason could only lead to atheism. So, instead of revising his beliefs, he rejected reason.

But this dichotomy between religion and reason is the product of the silly superstitions of disturbed men. Contrary to what some people think, I don't see a direct link between reason and atheism, since atheism—much like faith—claims to know precisely how the world works, and it further claims to be able to draw absolute conclusions about the nature of the universe on the basis of limited information.

If Loyola and Martin Luther are the bad guys on this issue, the good guys I want to root for in this tag team match are Galileo and Thomas Jefferson. Exposing the nearly blasphemous implications of the previous quotes, Galileo argued, “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use.”
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Jefferson expands on the same idea by writing,

Shake off all the fears and servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
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Maybe Loyola and Martin Luther believe in a schizophrenic God who first gives human beings the ability to reason, but then wants them to sacrifice it on the altar of blind faith. Psycho, moody gods are not my thing, so I'll side with Galileo and Jefferson and gladly recruit reason as a valuable ally. Reason, after all, is the prerequisite for all sciences and the springboard of inquiry. It would hardly be possible to sail away on our quest for truth without its help.

Perhaps what I like most about reason is its revolutionary ability to put us in charge of our own destinies. It breaks us out of the jail of dogmatic ignorance, and sets us free to figure things out for ourselves. It kicks us in the ass when we get too complacent, and it forces us to take full responsibility for whatever answers we'll come up with. With great humility, it doesn't dictate the direction of our journey. It simply empowers us to use our minds as best we're able.

Yes, I'm definitely a fan of reason, but . . . c'mon, don't act surprised. You know this was coming. Just about every other time I praise something in glowing terms the “but” is not far away (my manly muscles are one of the few exceptions . . . ) “But” is a three-letter stroke of genius. It keeps things in perspective. It prevents me from turning too rigid and self-righteous. It reminds me that hardly anything in life is black or white. Not even the best of things are immune from potential problems, and reason is no different. This is why as much as I appreciate reason and consider it an extremely valuable tool, I don't see it as the solution to all our problems.

We do not speak to each other, because we know too much . . . we smile our knowledge at each other
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—Friedrich Nietzsche,
Thus Spoke Zarathustra

The first issue I have is with reason's little minions, the trusted allies reason depends on: words. In many ways, I love words. They fascinate me. They are my playmates, and I hardly ever tire toying with them. Ask anyone I know and they'll tell you that if talking were a competitive sport, I would be its heavyweight champ. But as much as I indulge in the very Italian habit of firing away never-ending streams of words, it doesn't mean I don't see their limits.

Remembering the vision that transformed his life forever, Lakota holy man Black Elk commented, “And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw: for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being.”
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In similar fashion, when Thomas Aquinas penned the last word of his life's work, the
Summa Theologiæ
, he complained that what he had been able to write was but a fraction of what he had seen and knew in his heart.
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Anyone who has ever had a profoundly spiritual moment can understand what Aquinas and Black Elk are talking about. For that matter, anyone who has ever fallen in love can get it too. Somehow language doesn't seem to do justice to the intensity of certain feelings. If everything you have lived through can be easily summed up in words, you really haven't lived through much. Words are mental abstractions, feeble attempts to capture experiences that are much greater than any verbal formula. Trying to catch the totality of life through words is like going dinosaur-hunting with a mousetrap (not
that I have ever tried, but I'm sure you get the picture.) The deepest things in life dwell in lands that words cannot reach.

This is why certain philosophies and religious traditions warn us over and over again not to get too attached to words. Zen Buddhists compare their own teachings to a finger pointed at the moon. Focusing too narrowly on the finger, we may miss what the finger is trying to show us all along: the living experience of a more enlightened state of being.

The very first line of the Tao Te Ching makes this point perfectly: “The Tao that can be told is not the universal Tao.”
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That first line could also be the last, because, after denying that words can capture the real Tao, how can you go on talking about it? But instead Lao Tzu goes on to write a whole book on the topic. Contradictory? No, just paradoxical. The opening sentence is the equivalent of a product's warning label reminding us not to get caught up on doctrine because the Tao is beyond words. Not a bad reminder considering that the history of many ideologies has been tinted with blood by people who were willing to kill and be killed in the name of doctrines. Once this is cleared, Lao Tzu has no problem discussing the Tao. As long as it's understood that words are vague approximations of reality, there's no harm in using them. As Chuang Tzu, another pillar of Taoism, once said in his typical tongue-in-cheek style, “Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can have a word with him?”
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It's easy to mistake a person's wisdom with their teachings. Sometimes different people will express the exact same concept, and I'll find myself agreeing with one and disagreeing with the other. Is it because I'm a moody bastard? Maybe. But maybe it's simply that while the content of the message may be the same, the experience, the emotion, and the intent behind it are not. Sometimes I even get
along better with people I totally disagree with than with people who share my beliefs word for word. We are more than our words. Understanding somebody's words is obviously essential, but it's only the first step. If you get too attached to the letter of a message, you miss its spirit. And this is how all dogmas are born: from people who worship the letter and miss the spirit.