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Is Life a Tale Told by an Idiot? Probably.
My favorite political commentator, Dennis Prager, recently argued (Explaining the Left) that the hard political Left in the US and most intellectuals in Europe have abandoned traditional religions. To replace what they’ve abandoned, they’ve adopted a false religion of left wing political activism. Prager’s thesis makes a lot of sense to me.
Unhappily, Prager’s unflattering portrait of the Left’s lack of religious affiliations also describes me. That is, what he says of the Left—they have no God, believe most of the Bible is myth, and that death brings oblivion—is what I believe.
I’m uncomfortable, as you might imagine, being an ally of the Left. I want to be with you who believe. But I can’t. If there is such a thing as a religious bone, I lack it. My mom and dad also lacked that bone.
According to Prager, my life should be bereft of meaning. I have no religion and I don’t even have the Left’s politics to fall back on. (I’m even tepid in my right wing politics.) Yet I find life full of meaning. How can this be?
This way: When I was younger, I found significant meaning in teaching, writing, and helping to raise my kids. Now retired, I even find meaning in the commonplaces of daily life: sweeping the porch, doing my crosswords, feeding Ebbie the cat, walking in the evening with Bob the dog. These things are enough for me.
But even if I didn’t find meaning in the pedestrian, the meaning that my wife Marie 💕 lends to my life would be enough.
All well and good. It’s not hard to find meaning in life. Almost everyone does. It’s so easy, we hardly give it a second thought. Those whose find their lives empty sometimes check out of life early. I don’t blame them. If I felt my life was meaningless, I would probably check out early too.
Oddly, though I don’t agree with my favorite philosopher Dennis Prager in this matter, I happen to agree with my least favorite philosopher, the existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre: “Life has no meaning a priori,” Sartre says, “It is up to you to give it meaning.”
Would my life have more meaning if I had a religion? Perhaps. On a trip to Japan a few years back, Marie and I came across a shrine featuring rows and rows of little dolls, probably a thousand of them. Each doll, I was told, represented a dead child. Buddhist mothers and fathers visit these shrines every so often, where they change the little clothes of the dolls that represent their children. I have no doubt that the parents find that modest religious rite not only gives comfort to their lives, but also gives meaning to the loss of their child. We like to think that death makes sense.
There is something else in Prager’s thesis that I also disagree with. This is the idea that society would splinter and degrade without the support of religion. In that, he agrees with the Russian Christian, Fyodor Dostoevsky. Ivan, Doestoevsky’s atheist antagonist in The Brothers Karamazov claims that if there is no God, there are no rules to live by and no moral law to follow—and everything is permitted. Dostoevsky suggests that if Ivan’s philosophy ever became a society’s prevailing philosophy, things would fall apart and “mere anarchy,” in Yeats’ famous phrase, “[would be] loosed upon the world.”
Dostoevsky and Prager needn’t have worried. There are a host of forces outside religion to keep our passions in check and go to support a lawful society. For one thing, those who don’t fear God do fear going to jail. That is a powerful deterrent.
Other non-Christian forces keep us striving for the good. Plato, Aristotle, Zeno and a host of other pagan philosophers may be dead, but their ideas continue to form a part of the culture that we swim in.
And of course, atheists, pagans, and believers alike learn from Jesus, the greatest teacher of them all. The moral law that is taught every Sunday permeates our society and therefore becomes a part of the moral universe, even for non-believers.
For that reason, I’m a enthusiastic supporter of religion, especially the Judeo-Christian variety. There is no doubt in my mind that religion not only improves our moral life, but it also increases social stability and helps to ameliorate our base instincts.
Would I be more moral if I were a believer? Probably not. It’s true, as you probably suspect, that I don’t feel the weight of sin, and I have only a small conscience. But I and other non-believers live in a world of moral imperatives that was created by Jews, Christians, pagan philosophers, atheists, teachers, Boy Scout leaders, and others. All of those influences encourage me to refrain from lying, to contribute to charities, to be nice to people, and so on.
One of those moral imperatives encourages me to be nice to animals. My cat Ebbie is wracked with arthritis in these her latter days. So a few months back I built a little bench for Ebbie so that she could step up more easily into her litter box. (As you might expect, I’m fond of that passage in the Bible where the Deuteronomist commands Jewish farmers to unmuzzle the mouths of their oxen as the animals work. Unmuzzled, the oxen can then eat as they help thresh the farmers’ grain.)
I’m not the greatest moral exemplar of our species. I’m probably somewhere between St. Francis of Assisi on one side, Hitler on the other. My Christian wife is more moral than I am, more generous, and more forgiving—though I’ve always thought that her moral superiority is the result of her sex and her nature rather than her religion.
I even pray occasionally, though I’m almost certain that my prayers waft up and disappear into the ether, unheard and unacknowledged. Prayer is a form of meditation for me. I send my prayers upward. That’s enough for me.
So how do you and I differ in the way we lead our lives? Are you nicer to your spouse, steal less often than I do? Riot and burn cars fewer times than I do? Give to beggars more than I do? I bet you don’t treat your dog and cat as well as I do.
How would my life be different if I were a believer?
Most people on this site are probably religious. Religion and the Right (the two R’s) just seem to go together. I’d like to hear from you. Would your life be less rich without religion? Could you be moral without religion to support your behavior? Or would your life remain much the same?
Are there any others out there in Ricochet land like me? Chime in. I don’t like to feel alone.
Published in General
The Nazis, to take the usual example, did not believe that mentally disturbed people were inhabited by devils. Theirs was a very scientific take on that whole question.
I’ve become a spectator to my own post. The topic is still on track, but the level of the discourse has risen too far for me to reach.
So I’m reduced to making comments like these.
I should have known that GrannyDude’s hackles would get up. (What the hell is a hackle, anyway?)
Too true. And too depressing.
On the other hand, the Nazis and the Soviets both dispensed with their Christian identity altogether. Not a huge improvement.
The really depressing thing that all of us have to somehow come to terms with is that human beings are capable of incredible good…and unbelievable evil. I get to see both, on a small scale at least, up-close-and-personal, and when the juxtaposition is tight, it can give one whiplash.
?
I’m not afraid of you. (And I do fit into the category of “people.” I think.)I also think that was the point of the first comment I made (#4) in reference to the author of the OP.
Some of the best Christians I know are atheists or agnostics. My brother may be of them. And I think @kentforrester is another. I dunno about you. Convince me, please.
Heaven preserve me from muscular Christians who think, because they are sure they are “saved” that it doesn’t matter how they treat their fellow man in this life, because they are assured of salvation in the next. I’ll take my chances with kind people, of uncertain faith, among the rest of us, thank you very much.
Oh, definitely. His attitude—still evolving, as far as I can make out—is much more nuanced than that.
But people can be radical—that is, murderous and horrible— without being “religious.”
I know full-on ordained Christian ministers who would never in a million years insist that you believe a dead guy got up and walked. But they bless abortion clinics.
This man, for example. One of my teachers in seminary. Is it just me, or would I rather he was asking me to believe the dead can dance?
I don’t doubt it. Imagine the confusion on their faces when you inform them you’re an atheist and a conservative.
That alone is worth the price of admission.
My hackles aren’t up! My interest and sympathies are aroused.
I think a hackle is the back of a dogs neck—you know, what they erect when things are about to get really snarly and toothy?
Me too. I think Majestyk is pretty peachy too, just sayin’.
Oh “dude” wrong question, if you don’t want your fellow members to show off their esoteric knowledge.
As long as they don’t scream at you. Or hit you, or something. They can be really fanatical.
Cool! And—makes sense that we’d use the same word to describe the erectile hairs on a dog’s neck. Which came first, I wonder? (Probably the tool, right?)
There are plenty of things which many people think are good which nonetheless do not have cosmic importance.
I’ve mentioned this before in other contexts, but I think the resemblance of the Bible to a camel is a feature not a bug. People who actually engage, rather than merely read, the Bible discover that it is a book in constant conversation with itself as well as with us. The meta-message of the whole is that God isn’t found in a single voice, but in the conversation, the interaction, the relationship between voices.
One of the huge drawbacks of Islam (IMHO) is that they’ve just got that one voice, from one historical moment (or two, if you distinguish between Medina and Mecca) with a bit of Hadith and then the canon slams shut.
Have you, by any chance, read the Song of Solomon? That’s the book I generally recommend to interested game wardens who have never read the Bible.
I firmly believe God is love, and anyone who loves Marie and a dog as much as you do Bob has God in his heart. Not to worry.
I’m happy to report that they are not Christians. I don’t know what on Earth they are – perhaps it’s some new form of pseudo-religion, but “Christian” is not among the descriptions I would use for them.
Nanda, your hair is a mess! And those three closely spaced dots after the word Bob are weird and, well, totally loathsome. There! That should dispel any notions that I’m a goody-goody.
If the shoe doth not fit…
At one point or another I’ve read most of the Bible. Mainly in dribs and drabs, but the overarching sensation I got was one of boredom.
However, I’d still put my Biblical knowledge up against many peoples’. They don’t know what the thing actually says for the most part.
Very possibly. This is a marvelous book. (Womens’ Work, by Elizabeth Wayland Barber). One of the best, in that it doesn’t see the relationship between the sexes as one of “power,” or “control” but as one of complementarity and cooperation, and explains that things evolved the way they did for practical, social, civilizational, and humane reasons.
P.S. I have the tools. They are, if used improperly, or inexpertly, vicious in the damage they can cause. I have, in my wilder moments, contemplated writing a murder mystery in which they are used, and in which the (unimaginative, and probably male) police inspector cannot possibly fathom either the means or the motive.
Sure. We’re always projecting our junk onto the poor old cosmos.
That’s why I’m willing to confine my firm beliefs to what happens on a human scale. God may be out there, bangin’ the asteroids together for God’s own purposes, but my problem is how to love the friggin’ people in my here-and-now. That’s plenty for me, but I’m a fairly unambitious Christian.
Having said that, I can make an argument that, naturally, I think is watertight, to wit: consciousness and empathy are built-into the universe. The cosmos is structured in such a way that a.) life happens and b.) life will evolve, with a smidge of (I know, I know, inadmissible) teleology, in the general direction of love.
Since the Bible says God. Is. Love…
I’m scripturally sound on that.
Fortunately, God isn’t asking me to die on that particular hill. At least, not yet. I’m still on the “love your loud, smelly, obnoxious neighbor” hill, and it’s plenty steep enough for me.
This.
Have you heard about the parable of the puddle?
That’s one of the things I like about atheists—they are often pretty darned Biblically literate, which makes the conversations a lot more fun.
But you can’t say the Song of Solomon is boring? (The Dive Team found it riveting.)
By the way, I understand the boredom part. I’ve never understood why people say you can “get” religion by reading the Bible; surely everyone gets bogged down in the Begats?
It’s a book that requires a lot more than just reading before it can be useful, hence all the weekly-scripture and exegesis and sermonizing that people like me get paid the big bucks to do. Still, once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty great.
That’s why, if I were to be abandoned on a desert island and could only take four books, I’d take three blank books and the Bible.
Mrs. Dude, that’s a wise take on the Bible! (I’ve grown fond of exclamation points. I used to tell my students not to use them. What has become of me?).
I used to teach a course called the Bible as Literature, and I could have used your statement as my description of the course. This was about 1973. So where were you when I needed you, Granny?
This is one reason I’m a Universalist—no hell.
Not to provoke a whole other argument which, when it was last engaged in these august pages, went on for a very, very long time!
Kent,
I would like you and all the other Ricochet agnostics and atheists to consider doing the Alpha Program. The Alpha Program is for anyone curious about Christianity . https://alphausa.org/about. It is a pretty relaxed program, done by Christians who want to share their faith. There is free food. The website has “finder” screen to help you find a local Alpha program. I highly recommend it. Worth your time.
For me the key question is: Did Jesus voluntarily lay down his own life, and was he then physically resurrected? If so, everything he said has great credibility. If the resurrection occurred, Christianity is true, and if it did not, Christianity is worthless. I believe the resurrection occurred.
Do you mean the abortion-clinic-blessers? They certainly believe themselves to be Christians. The ones who aren’t Jewish or Muslim or whatever, anyway.
EDIT; Guy, I’m making your argument for you, here…gift horse in the mouth much?
Um…in sixth grade?
Tell me!