Calgary Skeptic’s Society Blog

It’s that time of year again, the ‘holiday’ season. A time of coming together for families, neighbors and friends, for talk around the fireplace and over a cup of cheer (in our house really massive amounts of red wine). All in all, this is my favorite time of year.

The holiday season is also known for something else, the inevitable debates between those wishing to preserve the separation of church and state and various religious groups. It started early this year with a students group at the University of Alberta (UofA) seeking to have references to God removed from the graduation oath. I never did learn how that turned out but I’ll wager the reference to God is still there. In response, religious groups will speak about how short-sighted and mean spirited secularists are, pushing their belief system down everyone else’s throat. Somewhat ironic of course, as by insisting graduating students repeat a god-laden oath, it is quite literally the religious who are pushing things into people’s throats.

Nevertheless the debates and resulting fireworks are entertaining. I used to think that the secularists were a little over the top with their protests. After all, who cares if the City of Calgary presents a Christmas display, or students take an oath proclaiming allegiance to god. Preserving the separation of church and state has bigger fish to fry than worrying about who is stuffing shoeboxes for the poor in far off lands. It would be fair to say there is considerable debate among skeptics and humanists on this point. Whether we do ourselves more harm than good by protesting such things and whether we should keep focused on the big picture concerns.

I don’t think this way anymore. Perhaps I have just been around too long, but all those little things seem to add up to big things. As with evolution, where small incremental changes over time give rise to entirely new species, the small violations of the separation of church and state can provide the foundation for much larger transgressions. As it turns out, the devil really is in the details.

Let’s return to the UofA. The debate was initiated by the University of Alberta’s Atheists and Agnostics (A &A) society. They wanted the reference to God taken out of the Chancellors’ standard convocation address in which graduates are told to go out and use their degrees to work for the glory of God. Before I go any further, let me say that as a graduate of the UofA, I have must have committed myself to this but I truly don’t remember. However, in all honesty, I can’t say anything I have done with my life or with my degree, has been for the glory of God or anyone else. They can’t recall my degree, can they?

Anyway, Andrew Chan, of Christians in Action Bible Study is quoted as saying “From my standpoint, the line has historical value because the U of A was founded on Christian beliefs,” and later, “Taking that out would take out a part of the university’s history.” From the small to the big. From swearing to God, to the promotion of the idea that the University of Alberta is some form of Christian organization (as it is founded on Christian beliefs). There is a big difference of course, between being founded by Christians and being founded on Christian beliefs. After all, the separation of church and state was (largely) created by Christians too. Does this make it part of Christian beliefs and if so, then aren’t the religious arguing against their own faith?

I would point out to Mr. Chan, as well as whoever governs the University of Alberta these days, that, the University of Alberta was founded by white people, that is on white people’s beliefs. As such, everyone should swear that they will use their degrees for the glory of Caucasians. Anything less is a denial of the UofA’s history. Yes, I am Caucasian and yes, when this change in policy comes through, I am most definitely going to be in attendance. It has been a long time since I have heard thousands swear to glorify me.

In the meantime, the City of Calgary will again promote the Judeo Christian nature of the holiday season, as will schools and other public institutions, and they will do so at the exclusion of other beliefs. They will excuse their actions on the basis that the majority of Calgarians are Christians, so no harm done. This is basically the same logic as that offered by Mr. Chan and it deserves the same response. The majority of Calgarians are also of white Anglo-Saxon heritage. Should we have a an official day for white people? (We could call it White Christmas, as in, I am dreaming of a white Christmas. That way our new holiday will already have its own song). We will need a symbol of course. I am ready to take suggestions by my vote is for the snow man. Strikes me as perfect. We could even get the mayor to stick the symbolic carrot in the nose and proclaim it officially White Christmas Day in recognition of Calgary as a White city (in much the same way some religious groups like to promote the idea that we are a Christian nation).

It was Thomas Jefferson who first used the metaphor of building a wall between church and state (ironically to the religous who strongly favored the idea). It is a wall we shouldn’t permit to be torn down, even slowly, brick by brick.

“Give God a chance and He will make something of your life.” I encountered this astonishing proposition on a church sign while driving home from work. It strikes me at once how destructive an idea it is—destructive of the self, of one’s self worth, of personal autonomy, of one’s confidence in one’s life and one’s ability to make something of it. A translation and exposition of this life-negating sentence might go like this:

It is impossible for you to make anything out of your life without God, and without God your life is worthless because nothing can be made of it. If you do not accept God, your life will never amount to anything. In sum, no person can ever make anything of their lives of their own accord, out of their own will and hard work.

How completely absurd, how utterly life-destroying. This kind of attitude crushes the individual human person; shatters and stomps on any notion of a person’s overcoming life’s obstacles and forging a good life for themselves through hard work, determination, and virtue. No, instead what is needed is complete submission to a higher power that will make your life good for you. You needn’t do anything but bow down to Him, and he will bestow you with a good life because you haven’t the necessary constitution to give one to yourself.

The more I think about this the more irate I become. This self-negating, life-negating attitude is perhaps what I dislike the most about certain religious beliefs, and many self-help programs based on religious principles (e.g., Alcoholics Anonymous). We should be encouraging people to take responsibility for their own lives, telling them that they have the power within them to fulfill their potential and create a good life for themselves. Because we do, all of us. Life is extraordinarily complex and difficult, and at times it can be a daunting task just to get out of bed in the morning to face it. But we have the potential within us to overcome the obstacles placed in our way, and to remove those that we place there ourselves. We have the potential to improve our habits and patterns of thought in order that we may lead happier, healthier lives. And all this stems from a personal autonomy which nothing save serious injury or death can take from us—the power to decide what one wishes to do with one’s life, what kind of person one wants to be, and the power to carry out the actions that can get us there, get us to where we want to go and who we want to be.

Sentiments like those expressed in the church sign are the negation of these life-affirming, positive human truths. Perhaps in that anti-human proposition we find the seeds of what makes some religions so powerful: convince someone they aren’t worth anything, that only an outside force can ever help them amount to anything, and they will keep coming back. They will keep coming back because so long as they seek the solution outside themselves, they will never attain it.

Those of us who do not embrace those life-denying words, whether we are a believer or not (for not all believers embrace them) know better. And we will never cease in our quest to convince others of this—but we will do so not through dogmatism and force, but through reasoned and respectful discourse. Our commitment to human potential will not die until we ourselves lie in the earth.

This is my first post on the blog, and I hope to make a weekly appearance here, assuming my schedule can be massaged appropriately.  I hope to contribute mostly opinion-pieces; to delve into some fundamental issues within (and without) skepticism in a reasoned, philosophical way.  I’ll leave specific critiques, reviews, and anecdotes/recommendations to those who do it much better than I ever could–the other contributors, who have provided some excellent material so far.  And so, without further preamble, on to the real issue.

Religion is something that gets a lot of time in skeptical circles.  Skeptics spend a lot of time critiquing, criticizing, and sometimes even simply bashing religion in general, or specific religions and their practices.  The bookstores are full of recent atheist/freethinker writings on religion; most of us I’m sure are familiar with the work of Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, and the rest.  We have a recent film by Bill Maher, reviewed on this very blog.  While skeptics don’t confine themselves to matters of religion, instead dealing with supernaturalism or a lack of critical thinking in all domains in which they arise, of late I believe there is a tendency to focus on religion in particular, especially in light of world events and the cultural buzz created by the “New Atheism” (as if it was ever old).

It would not surprise me if another source of this focus is that many skeptics became what they are in reaction to being brought up in a religious household, or in breaking away from a religious tradition in which they were formerly devout believers.  We often go with what we know, and in many cases, skeptics know religion well; indeed often very well.  And this is certainly an asset in any critique.

But I think this focus on religion leads us astray in many ways, for it amounts to focusing on removing the branches of a diseased tree rather than uprooting it entirely.  Religion, while important to critique in many respects, is only a branch on the tree in question; other branches are psuedoscience, the paranormal, psychic phenomenon, bigotry, racism, and closed-mindedness.

The tree in question is one plagued by a lack of critical thinking.  And this is the real root of the problem; this is what skepticism ought to be directed against-a lack of critical thinking in all areas of life, not simply the lack of critical thinking that can lead to a certain kind of adherence to religion.

At this point I should inform my readers that I’m not entirely convinced that all religion, in all its forms, is something we’d be better off without, or something that it is too irrational, or illogical, or otherwise to hold to.  The details of this view are academic and would take far too much space to spell out in detail.  However, there are easy-to-identify instances of religion that are not worth having around, that result from a lack of critical thinking and acceptance of dogma, and often result in violence, close-mindedness, or hubris.  And this is enough to justify a certain critique of religion and its dogma.

Now that this caveat is out of the way, I can return to my main point.  It is all to easy for us to get bogged down in criticizing and critiquing of religion; all too easy to blame it for so much of what, as skeptics, we seek to remedy in the world.  But this is a view that does not dig deep enough, does not see what lies beneath the surface.  The real problem is a lack of critical thinking and a lack of informed reflection in our society more generally.  This is a situation that must change, and it is to this end that we should be most dedicated; not simply in pointing out its lack, but in actively trying to change things for the better.  This means promulgating both the resources for and the value in thinking critically, as well as lobbying for educational reform.

We serve our interests best when our efforts are directed at the source of the problem, not its symptoms.  And while an examination of the symptoms will be instructive - for those willing to listen - in the way the disease arises, our critiques will cut no ice if our interlocutors do not understand the value of critical reasoning and informed thinking.

Our priority ought to be making people see this value.  Our efforts are futile otherwise.

Fair and Biased.

That’s what good documentaries should be. All too often documentaries with an obvious agenda try to pass themselves off as fair and impartial. (Here I am thinking of films like “Jesus Camp” and Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11″) Their message is lost in their attempts to convince us that they’re not biased, that they’re presenting the material objectively. Bullshit.

When did it become bad to show your bias in documentaries. If your film is largely an editorial on a specific issue you should have a bias. Use that bias to make your point and present it in an interesting way.

So, the question is: Is “Religulous” a film that has something interesting or important to say?, or is it just “Borat” redux; a bunch of scenes of smart people shooting fish in a barrel.”

The answer is a bit of both. Fortunately it is much more the former rather than the latter.

Bill Maher isn’t out to make fun of these people. He is not there to insult them for our amusement. (Well, not usually) He has questions for these people, and he genuinely wants them to have answers for him. I think he would like nothing more than to have one of them give him these answers. There’s a scene in the film where he’s interviewing a character in a theme park. At one point the person being interviewed offers up a really compelling piece of rhetoric and it really does sort of stop Maher in his tracks, he doesn’t cut away, they don’t shrug it off. In fact they address it seriously and devote a few minutes to Maher talking about being thrown for a loop.

He’s not just interviewing crazy people here, specifically I’m thinking of when he speaks to a senior Vatican priest and a Vatican astronomer. These were two highly intelligent men who really had a lot of interesting and compelling things to say. If anything I would have liked to see a lot more from these men and a bit less from a few of the people who had literally nothing to say. Here I’m referring to the guy whose religion was based on smoking marijuana. (could someone please tell me why the hell that guy was even IN the movie? It honestly felt like it was an excuse for Bill Maher to smoke.)

Sure, there are scenes in the film that are only there to amuse. Let’s not forget that this movie is also a comedy. Some of the people he talks to are flat out crazy. But, the only people he flat out mocks are the people who deserve it. (Second coming of Jesus anybody?)

There are some flaws however, throughout the film Charles cuts to clips from pop culture in response to certain things that the interviewees say. Some of these are very effective and hilarious. Some of them however, are not. A lot of the time they are unnecessary. We as the audience are intelligent enough to know when something is funny or crazy, we don’t need a clip from pop culture to clue us in. I think there were just too many of them.

Ultimately, regardless of what you might think about the rest of the movie, the ending really works. After all the comedy we’ve seen he sums up his point: “Doubt is humble.” That’s really the theme of this movie, you should be able to question religions. You should be able to talk about these things with people without people saying you’re attacking them. Lastly, if you’re someone who saw this movie and was offended by the way Maher treated your religion I would be very curious to know how you felt when he went after the other guys. Did it bother you the same? Or were you only offended with he talked about YOUR beliefs. He doesn’t want cynicism. He wants skepticism, and I think that’s something we can all agree the world needs a bit more of.

“You want to know how I know you’re not sure? because I’m not sure and you don’t possess mental powers that I do not.” - Bill Maher

“Atta boy Bill!” - Joey Gruszecki