The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture (29 page)

The virus often takes advantage of survivor’s guilt. Everyone on the Titanic prayed to be saved. Only a few survived. Many of those who survived were plagued by the fact that so many died and yet they lived. Their survival was often seen as a direct act of god.
“It was god’s will that I survived. It was part of god’s plan.”
What a huge advantage the virus now has. Who can resist following god’s plan when he let you survive?

You may find this pattern in yourself or someone you know. The whole notion of luck is often bound up in superstition and bargaining. While you may not bargain with the gods, you may catch yourself hoping for luck or good fortune. You may find yourself asking “why me?” like there is someone “up there” choosing to pick on you. It is an easy mistake to make. We humans are programmed to see patterns and use those patterns to protect ourselves and survive. In the case of the supernatural, the patterns are illusions that can divert energy and attention from the task at hand.

The key to helping someone often lies in using their worldview to communicate. This is uncomfortable for many non-theists. How do you talk with someone who believes and prays for supernatural intervention? How do you respond to someone who asks you to pray for her?

If you want to help someone, use his or her mental framework,
not
yours. If someone asks you to pray for him, say, “I will keep you in my thoughts.” Keeping the person in your thoughts reminds you to call to check up or send a card. It helps both of you stay in touch during a time of crisis. The behavior is remarkably similar to that of a religionist, just don’t engage in the supernatural part of the process.

One question you can use to help a person is, “What are you doing to get more of what you want?” Applied to prayer, the question might be, “Is the prayer you are saying getting you the answer you are seeking? If not, what other things might you try?” Simply asking questions like this often gets the person out of the prayer loop and into action. Many people pray because they don’t know anything else to do, or because they are afraid of actually doing something. By simply using their framework, you create trust and help them move to a more positive or active role.

In no case do you have to play at believing something you don’t. It is better if you use their beliefs and let your own beliefs stay out of the picture. If they ask how you pray, it is fine to say, “I don’t pray, but I want to support you.” Stay focused on their needs and fears, not the virus or your beliefs. They will benefit, and the relationship will be supported as well.

Sooner or later, you will be in a position of wanting to give solace. Often the person you are helping knows you are a non-believer. In a crisis, it really doesn’t matter. What matters is your emotional presence and loving care. Most grieving people are not thinking, “He is an Atheist; he can’t know what I feel!” That is the last thing in their mind. Humans want genuine emotional connection in times of crisis, and they really don’t care where it comes from as long as it is heart-felt and sincere.

Dr. Richard Selzer, a renowned humanist surgeon and author, tells of a time when a dying patient asked for a priest.
¹¹
After several calls, it became clear that the priest would not arrive in time. Selzer turned off the lights, left the room and came back in, lowered his voice and proceeded to take the man’s confession. When asked why he did that when he is a non-theist, he replied, “I just wanted to give him what he wanted as his last wish.” It was not about what Dr. Selzer believed, it was what was best for the other person at that time.

Recall your own crises. Did you ask the person supporting you about his theological beliefs? That is the big mistake of professional religionists like priests and ministers. They immediately resort to theological platitudes like, “He is in heaven with his mother,” or “Jesus will see her through this crisis,” – when what the person really wants is a warm, loving arm and a soft voice that says, “I am here with you. I am not going anywhere and I will listen with loving, nonjudgmental care.”

Eventually, they may want a minister. By all means, get them a minister. Stay focused on them, not the virus, and they will likely experience your care more powerfully.

An Atheist woman was in her last few days of life after a long battle with cancer. Her mother asked a minister to visit her with the hope of getting a deathbed conversion. The woman’s husband intercepted the minister at the door and asked to have a word with him.

“Reverend, my wife has been an Atheist for the last 20 years. If there is one thing she doesn’t like, it is religion. I am happy to have you talk to her, but my most important concern is her comfort and peace of mind. If you can go in and talk to her with no mention of religion, if you can keep her mother from getting into a religious rant, then by all means visit with her. If at any time I see something that might upset her, I will ask you to leave immediately. Can you live with that?”

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Humanist Network News,
Podcast #26: Mortal Lessons & The Art of Surgery
[interview on-line] (19 December 2007); available from
http://www.humaniststudies.org/podcast/
; Internet. Richard Selzer,
Confessions of a Knife
(Michigan State University Press, 2001),
The Exact Location of the Soul
(Picador, 2002) and
Down from Troy: A Doctor Comes of Age
(Michigan State University Press, 2001).

The minister agreed, went in and asked the mother to leave. He proceeded to have a low-key and uplifting conversation with the dying woman.

Here are some suggestions for someone in this situation:

1. Put the dying person’s comfort first and use his or her worldview. If the dying woman had been a Christian, and the minister properly trained, it may have been an equally productive visit. I have been quite impressed with the skill of Hospice and hospital chaplains in dealing with all manner of religious beliefs at death. Their training and experience is especially good in this area.

2. Protect the person from others who have their own agenda. Let the person die in whatever religious state he or she wishes. It is their life, not their father’s, mother’s, priest’s, or child’s.

3. Keep your agenda out of the picture.

4. Death brings out all sorts of irrational and emotional behavior in family, friends, parents, and children à la the mother in the vignette above). Recognize that this is often the virus speaking, not the person in front of you. Keep compassion for that person while helping to mitigate the effects of religious behavior around the dying person. The most important thing non-theism does is to buffer you from the effects of the virus. Stay above the fray while keeping compassion. You will find it extremely rewarding.

If you are the one grieving or hurting, it is your perfect right to express yourself in a way that helps you become more comfortable. Take care of yourself. Ask a friend to help buffer you from known vectors. For example, I have asked my son to ensure that religion does not come near my deathbed or my funeral. He has agreed, and I trust that he will be able to do whatever it takes to make that happen.

Now let's leave death and look at some other areas of importance in the lifecycle.

Healthy marriage is an art form founded on excellent communication skills and deep concern for the needs and wants of the other. A study by the Barna Research Group in 1999 showed that Baptists were more likely to get
divorced than any other Christian denomination. Evangelical groups tended to equal the divorce rate of the state in which they lived. Atheists, agnostics, and other non-believers were less likely to be divorced than evangelical groups and equal to the lowest groups. Based on interviews with 3,854 adults in the continental United States, of the currently divorced, 27% of self-described born-again Christians were divorced compared to 24% of all other adults.
¹²

**Non-denomination refers to evangelical Christian congregations that are not affiliated with a specific denomination. The vast majority are fundamentalists in their theological beliefs.

George Barna, president and founder of Barna Research Group, commented on his research:

While it may be alarming to discover that born again Christians are more likely than others to experience a divorce, that pattern has been in place for quite some time. Even more disturbing, perhaps, is that when those individuals experience a divorce many of them feel their community of faith provides rejection rather than support and healing. But the research also raises questions regarding the effectiveness of how churches minister to families. The ultimate responsibility for a marriage belongs to the husband and wife, but the high incidence of divorce within the Christian community challenges the idea that churches provide truly practical and life-changing support for marriages.
¹³

12
ReligiousTolerence.org
,
U.S. divorce rates for various faith groups, age groups & geographic areas
[article on-line] (accessed 22 November 2008); available from
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm
; Internet.

Other research has shown the strong correlation between fundamentalism and divorce in states like Alabama and Oklahoma. Based on studies over the last 10 years, the Bible Belt has the highest divorce rate in the nation.
¹⁴
Data from the 2000 U.S. Census show that divorce rates are highest where evangelicals are strongest: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas and lowest where they are weakest: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
¹⁵

Evangelicals preach that faith and belief are the foundations of a good marriage. “The family that prays together, stays together” is one example. Marital guilt is a major industry for the religion. It begins with guilt about how you are not living up to some biblical ideal from two guys named Paul and Jesus who supposedly never married; then you feel guilty about the way your sex life is going when your spouse loses interest; then guilt about raising children. There is never an end to marital guilt. It promotes religious “marriage encounters” and “marriage retreats” and keeps people looking for those elusive answers from the god virus.

Religion-based marriages focus on the god virus so much that the couple do not see or relate to one another. The relationship is colored by the god virus. It is difficult to see your partner’s needs and desires when your guilt, religious ideas and expectations consume so much of your attention. There is an invisible friend in the marriage with them all the time, but they can never be sure what he is doing or thinking, except in their imagination.

Many religious people stay married a lifetime whether they are Christian, Muslim, Mormon or Hindu, but Atheists are as likely to stay married as anyone. There is no evidence that the god virus creates better and longer lasting marriages, but each of these religions claims their god virus is responsible for good marriages.

13
The letter was unexpectedly taken off line but can still be found quoted in many other sites. See Free Christians,
Some reflections on Divorce
[article on-line] (accessed 23 November 2008); available from
http://www.freechristians.com/Sex_Page/marriage.htm
; Internet.

14
National Center for Policy Analysis,
Bible Belt Leads U.S. In Divorces
[article on-line] (19 November 1999, accessed 23 November 2008); available from
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=10961
; Internet.

15
“Walking the walk on family values,”
Boston Globe
, 31 October 2004.

Religionists view non-theists through the lens of the virus. As a result, they cannot see themselves, their religion or other religions objectively. Anger is a major part of fundamentalist religion. It helps maintain control and invoke fear of retribution from the god virus. When interacting with those infected, keep the boundaries clear and do not fall into conversion behavior. Be aware of the transformation some religious people go through when talking about their faith. It will give you a good idea about how to communicate with them. The god virus makes claims about marriage and family that have no basis in fact. Non-religious people are as likely to have long marriages as are the religious.

“The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.”

-George Bernard Shaw, Androcles and the Lion, Preface (1916)