An American Solution to the Problems of Religion: Unitarians?
I was talking about Pete Stark – the East Bay congresscritter who recently had the guts to admit that, no, he doesn't believe in the Sky Fairy – with my wife, and it was mentioned that he was a Unitarian.
Opines I, “If all religions were like the Unitarians, I probably wouldn't have a problem with religion.”
Then it struck me: is this the American solution to the problem of religion? The problem, to me, isn't really that someone believes in a loosely defined god. The problem is that they do so at the expense of reason, experience and even their own senses - and that belief almost always says they must foist their faith off on others. And, in doing so, they become bigots and worshipers of authority. I think that is, in rough, the basis of my problems with religion.
Unitarians don't do that. They explore religious subjects, including various gods, but in a very humanistic way. They are so open that they do accept atheists, without condemnation.
The United States is it's own place. Part of me really would just prefer chucking out the idea of religion as important – as they're doing in a lot of Europe, so my European friends tell me – but some of that is the anger towards religion that many atheists in America get. However, the US has certain cultural institutions and churches are one of them.
Even beyond the whole god thing, there's a lot of reasons people go to church. I, myself, am of the opinion that one of the reasons religion has made such a resurgence in my lifetime is the destruction of normal social patterns. Adults in America, nowadays, on average, do three long distant moves in their lifetime. Each time they do a long distance move – or, to a lesser extent, even a short distance one – they tear up all connections with their community, they uproot their children, put aside friendships, etc., etc. Moving is a fairly traumatic event. And when you get where you're going, where do you go to make friends? A place that isn't a meat market, that's safe for your children, where you don't have to feel competitive or defensive – that's church! You can move wherever you want, but within a short distance of your new home there's going to be a friendly church with wholesome activities for your family, a good place to meet friends, etc. And to join this happy group of wholesome people, all you've gotta do is profess to “accept Jesus”.
Even if my hypothesis isn't true, it's obvious that churches in America provide a lot of support for the communities they're part of. They're a place to meet people, to socialize, to do good works with more immediacy than supporting government reforms. They're a good place to bring one's children without fear that they'll pick up bad habits (except, of course, the religious bigotry and arrogance I was talking about earlier). Churches are a place of support and love. America's got nothing else like them.
The Unitarians, then, might have hit on something important for the United States. The problem with religion is that religions teach intolerance and deference to authority, and they teach that a book is more important than reason, experience and the evidence of your own senses. Even the “moderate” and “liberal” versions of a given religion teach this. The Unitarians, however, do not.
If the Unitarians became the model for American churches, they would provide all the social infrastructure without any of the real downsides that most religions have (mindless adherence to mythical authority, that smug belief that they're better because they're saved or whatever, not to mention the fundamentalist aspects of a given religion).
To me, this isn't quite as good as rejecting religion altogether. But, ultimately, since I don't believe in re-education camps I'm going to have to accept in a free society that a certain percentage of the people are going to want to believe in things I find absurd (say, UFO or conspiracy cranks) and give them a space to do so without really hurting anyone. Unitarian churches could provide that – a place for people to be non-offensively religious. I think of it as harm reduction.
Opines I, “If all religions were like the Unitarians, I probably wouldn't have a problem with religion.”
Then it struck me: is this the American solution to the problem of religion? The problem, to me, isn't really that someone believes in a loosely defined god. The problem is that they do so at the expense of reason, experience and even their own senses - and that belief almost always says they must foist their faith off on others. And, in doing so, they become bigots and worshipers of authority. I think that is, in rough, the basis of my problems with religion.
Unitarians don't do that. They explore religious subjects, including various gods, but in a very humanistic way. They are so open that they do accept atheists, without condemnation.
The United States is it's own place. Part of me really would just prefer chucking out the idea of religion as important – as they're doing in a lot of Europe, so my European friends tell me – but some of that is the anger towards religion that many atheists in America get. However, the US has certain cultural institutions and churches are one of them.
Even beyond the whole god thing, there's a lot of reasons people go to church. I, myself, am of the opinion that one of the reasons religion has made such a resurgence in my lifetime is the destruction of normal social patterns. Adults in America, nowadays, on average, do three long distant moves in their lifetime. Each time they do a long distance move – or, to a lesser extent, even a short distance one – they tear up all connections with their community, they uproot their children, put aside friendships, etc., etc. Moving is a fairly traumatic event. And when you get where you're going, where do you go to make friends? A place that isn't a meat market, that's safe for your children, where you don't have to feel competitive or defensive – that's church! You can move wherever you want, but within a short distance of your new home there's going to be a friendly church with wholesome activities for your family, a good place to meet friends, etc. And to join this happy group of wholesome people, all you've gotta do is profess to “accept Jesus”.
Even if my hypothesis isn't true, it's obvious that churches in America provide a lot of support for the communities they're part of. They're a place to meet people, to socialize, to do good works with more immediacy than supporting government reforms. They're a good place to bring one's children without fear that they'll pick up bad habits (except, of course, the religious bigotry and arrogance I was talking about earlier). Churches are a place of support and love. America's got nothing else like them.
The Unitarians, then, might have hit on something important for the United States. The problem with religion is that religions teach intolerance and deference to authority, and they teach that a book is more important than reason, experience and the evidence of your own senses. Even the “moderate” and “liberal” versions of a given religion teach this. The Unitarians, however, do not.
If the Unitarians became the model for American churches, they would provide all the social infrastructure without any of the real downsides that most religions have (mindless adherence to mythical authority, that smug belief that they're better because they're saved or whatever, not to mention the fundamentalist aspects of a given religion).
To me, this isn't quite as good as rejecting religion altogether. But, ultimately, since I don't believe in re-education camps I'm going to have to accept in a free society that a certain percentage of the people are going to want to believe in things I find absurd (say, UFO or conspiracy cranks) and give them a space to do so without really hurting anyone. Unitarian churches could provide that – a place for people to be non-offensively religious. I think of it as harm reduction.
Labels: christianity, religion, unitarians
2 Comments:
A nice touch on the subject of Unitarians. Being brought up in the Unitarian church, I spent many of my formative years asking the same questions as this post.
Kudos!
Thank you!
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