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Why Should You Read this Book?
There are a significant number of people who describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious”. These are folks who do not want to live a life of materialist consumption. They believe that “Whoever has the most toys when they die wins” isn't much of a way to live a life.
At the same time, these folks do not want to be associated with any sort of institutional religion. That’s because many of the religious institutions that purport to be the arbiters of all value in our society seem positively unhinged. Setting aside the most odious examples of abuse of power---such as the sexual abuse of children or using ministries as mechanisms for amassing personal wealth---many mainstream churches have emphasized the trivial and ignored the substantial. Religious organizations often seem to be totally obsessed with sex. For them, any expansion of civil rights for homosexuals and transgenders is abhorred and abortion is considered a form of murder. Thoughtful people find this emphasis bizarre. They often know people with non-traditional sexual orientation and don't understand why they are to be so feared. And anyone with a passing knowledge of biology can't understand why a world that is so profoundly profligate with life would be concerned about whether or not a fertilized human egg fulfills its potential and becomes a baby.
In contrast, anyone with eyes to see notices the existential threat of climate change. They also see the tremendous imbalance of wealth that neo-liberalism has caused. A small percentage of people have much more than they need---and many more others have to struggle just to survive. Our governments are also engaged in endless “low-intensity” wars that only affect a few brutalized veterans here, but spread misery to untold millions in other nations.
People see these problems and cannot understand why what seems to be the loudest, most self-confident, and, most influential religious institutions fixate upon sexual orientation and abortion while ignoring the mountain of injustice and misery that surrounds us. It is true that there are many religious groups doing great work. The civil rights movement in the sixties, for example, was sustained by the black community's churches. Without the enormous amount of “street level” ministry that many religious institutions offer, many poor and destitute people would have nowhere to turn. But for all that is good with some religious institutions, this isn't enough to overcome the bad that many people see coming from many powerful religious institution’s bizarre definition of what is and is not of ultimate value to human beings.
A large part of the problem is that the world that traditional religion springs from is profoundly at odds with the day-to-day life of most people. The political vision embodied in Abrahamic1 religions is rigidly hierarchical and authoritarian. God is an absolute dictator who enforces his laws through the use of an eternal concentration camp known as “Hell”. Modern people inhabit democracies where leadership is through consensus building and power flows from the bottom up instead of the top down. Free expression is encouraged---not only as a human right, but also because truth is seem as flowing from a conversation between equals who each bring their own personal viewpoint to a complex issue. Science---who's amazing insights and creations we take for granted---is also based on the free flow of ideas and argument over competing hypotheses.
This divergence between the religious worldview and the modern life experience is probably best summed up by way religious conservatives view hypocrisy. Modernists view it as a deadly sin, because it allows individuals experiencing cognitive dissonance to avoid reassessing their cherished beliefs. If a priest simply cannot follow his vow of celibacy, for example, the experience gives him a chance to rethink his definition of what it means to be a human being. Perhaps we are not spiritual souls trapped in flesh who have total control over our behaviour in all situations. Instead, maybe we are products of evolution who have very strong instinctual drives that need to be accepted and integrated into life. The honest man can work through this calculus and change his life. In contrast, the hypocrite dismisses the cognitive dissonance as an example of “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”. From the “inside out” this feels like an example of humility by a “fallen human being”, but from the outside in, it can seem like a lack of moral courage and duplicity.
In contrast, conservative religious people seem to believe that the greatest sin is rebellion. That was the sin of Satan, after all. Yet the problem with this is that so many of our most cherished institutions are the result of rebellion. The USA was founded by a rebellion. The parliamentary democracy that it rebelled against was itself the product of an earlier, English rebellion against an absolutist monarch. The computer that I am writing this book on is itself a product of several scientific “rebellions” against an old way of thinking. It is obvious to anyone with eyes to see that rebellion is not an isolated act of will, but rather one of the key agents of human progress. If people have to choose between hypocrisy and rebellion, the forward-looking, clear-eyed, honest people of today will choose rebellion every time.
I have written this book to help people understand that it is possible to develop and pursue a life of value without turning your back on reason and personal experience. In my own case, the values that I have adopted are Daoist. There are other options out there too. This is the way of non-religious values. They are provisional. What this means is that they are always open to debate, and if in that conversation someone is able to convince you that one of your beliefs is not supported by either reason or experience, then you should be willing to change it. This may---and in practical terms does---mean that there are different sets of plausible values besides the ones that work for me. Other people have different life experiences that lead them to see things differently. It might be that there ultimately is only one really coherent set of values, but the fact is that if there is, none of us have the time and energy to figure them out. We all live a short life and have only limited opportunities. Maybe our culture will slowly and painstakingly work itself closer and closer to this ultimate set of values---but that's not going to happen in my lifetime. So we must pay our money and make our choice. This book explains my choice and invites others to make their own.
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1Ie: Judaism, Christianity, and, Islam.
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