{"id":3555,"date":"2011-08-12T10:53:09","date_gmt":"2011-08-12T09:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/?p=3555"},"modified":"2011-08-12T10:53:09","modified_gmt":"2011-08-12T09:53:09","slug":"religion-secularism-etc-thoughts-for-a-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/?p=3555","title":{"rendered":"Religion, Secularism & Etc: thoughts for a Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2001<\/a><\/p>\n

You’ll forgive us if we stray from merely reporting on our lives sometimes to just giving you a taste of what we’re thinking about. These days, now that D.’s Big Paper is done (mostly – the supervisors are still reading it one last time<\/i> before it goes to committee)<\/small>, he still finds that he tends to think in… er, paragraphs. He reads widely and thinks a lot, and generally confines himself to sharing articles and thoughts with T. — and now you.<\/p>\n

Aren’t you lucky?<\/p>\n

So, we happened across an article entitled, “Going Godless: Does Secularism Make People More Ethical?<\/a>” Awesome title, and certain to grab attention. Go away, now, and read it. Then we’ll discuss.<\/p>\n

  *hums Jeopardy!<\/i> theme*<\/p>\n

OK, good, you’re back. The gist of the piece, for those people who apparently cannot follow directions (shame, you non-readers), is a discussion of religion in various places, the fact that many religions are losing adherents, and the question of whether or not rejecting organized religion makes one more ethical. The article explores a report made by The Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at Trinity College, Connecticut.<\/p>\n

The upshot of the study from the Institute: no, rejecting organized religion doesn’t make one more ethical at all, or at least that<\/i> hasn’t been proven. It’s not a cause\/effect issue. However the study directed up researcher Barry Kosmin did find that the secular people polled were more ethically inclined than the religious people polled. So, what is it about the “secularists” which caused<\/b> them to be more ethical? Perhaps it’s their having actually thought<\/b> about what makes something “right” or “wrong.” Belief, after all, doesn’t constitute “knowledge” – case in point: just because you believe in UFO’s doesn’t make them real, does it?<\/p>\n

Perhaps critical thinkers (regardless of whether they be atheist \/ agnostic \/ religious) are more ethical. Maybe those who actually consider whether something is right or wrong are more ethical because they have gone beyond the “belief” stage and into the “knowing” stage of personal knowledge: they have gone through a process of reasoning, which is different from just believing something. Now, granted, you don’t want to reason your way through something like gravity – you’d better just believe in it, or you’ll be broken and bruised before you know it. Somethings do<\/i> require belief – but maybe we believe strongly in gravity because we’ve seen some small examples of its truths. Does that follow in religious or secular thought?<\/p>\n

\"Hummingbird<\/a><\/p>\n

When you’re a child, you have to take everyone’s word for how the world works. Whether it’s your schoolmates or your parents, pretty much everyone who sounds like they’re an authority is, at least for five or ten minutes, believed. However, as an adult, many people struggle with the idea of accepting the opinion of some dudes (yes – they were all<\/b> men) who wrote several thousands of years ago about how they felt the world should work — and many times advocating stoning for those who didn’t agree. Should adults – religious or non – accept anybody’s<\/b> opinion on what is “right?” <\/p>\n

Maybe… no, actually. Surprised? You might be, considering that many of you know us to be religious people. However, if you, like everyone else on earth have a.) freedom of choice, b.) the ability to think, you can think things through and weigh all of the possibilities, and come up with your own opinions. Whether that makes you a “secularist” or not, well, maybe that’s entirely a matter of labeling. After all, religious people can read and study and still think for themselves.<\/p>\n

Despite the study, maybe there isn’t such a gap between “religious” and “secular” people. Some religions ask people to believe things which are untrue or which just aren’t ethical by any meaning of the word — as a matter of belief. Consider the ministers, who, each time there’s a natural disaster, bring up some weird correlation between that nation and somehow displeasing God. Really? And where is their proof? But their members are expected to believe without any facts… and often they do, going along wholeheartedly with disparaging a people who are already beaten down and suffering from fire, earthquake, tsunami, or floods. That we don’t agree with the blind-belief thing doesn’t mean that we endorse disbelieving in God – not by any means – but it sometimes seems like those of us who believe in thinking as well as<\/i> God<\/b> are vanishingly few.<\/p>\n

\"2006<\/a><\/p>\n

The study lists secular beliefs as things like believing in supporting the environment, treating people of different gender and ethnicities with kindness beyond tolerance, and opposing war. One really weird thing the study noted is that many secular people have more knowledge about religious beliefs than religious people. …hm. Which reminds us of a quote:<\/p>\n

They’re trained to believe, not to know. Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous. – Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To recap: We believe in God. However, we believe that ethics should be considered, contemplated, and should be coherent. Does that make us “secularists?” Or simply thinking human beings? It just doesn’t seem very wise – or Godly – to fear thinking. But for some people, the very idea spells t-r-o-u-b-l-e.<\/p>\n

And that’s our thoughts for a Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Now, talk amongst yourselves…<\/p>\n

-D & T<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You’ll forgive us if we stray from merely reporting on our lives sometimes to just giving you a taste of what we’re thinking about. These days, now that D.’s Big Paper is done (mostly – the supervisors are still reading it one last time before it goes to committee), he still finds that he tends […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3555\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}