I’ve been pondering my conversion to Christianity recently. I wasn’t raised in a Christian home, so I wasn’t indoctrinated with Christian ideas at an early age. When I was very young, I actually thought ‘God’ was a four letter word. The only time I heard the word employed was when my father was cursing about something. It was the influence of the Christians that I knew that brought me into the fold, particularly some very dedicated youth workers. Specifically, the mother (Kathy) of one of my good friends (Joe) happened to be the youth leader at a local United Methodist Church. Kathy was probably the first example of what a Christian should be, to this day I have a great deal of respect for Kathy. She was kind, humble, committed. Though Kathy was not perfect, she was good to me during one of the darker times of my life.

It was really through the compassion and faith of this devoted youth worker that I began considering the claims of Christianity. Kathy was just so nice, and she believed so much, how could Christianity not be true? And so, over time, I came to believe more and more of the Christian message. Understand I was an adolescent and didn’t comprehend everything, nor did I embrace it all at once. But over time through my interactions with Kathy and other Christians, I decided that I too was a Christian.

Granted, my conversion was a bit more complex than that. It wasn’t just my interactions with Christians. But that was a key component. So then is religious conversion really justified by the committed relationship of another to their religion? I’ve been reading Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s autobiography Infidel about her journey through Islam. One of the parts I found fascinating was her interaction with a Muslim Girl’s School teacher named Sister Aziza. The influence of Sister Aziza upon Ayaan was very similar to the influence of Kathy upon me.

The first thing Sister Aziza asked was, “How many of you are Muslims?” The whole class put up their hands up, of course. We were clearly Muslims, had been since birth. But Sister Aziza shook her head sadly, and said, “I don’t think you are Muslims.”

We were startled. Not Muslims? What could she possibly mean? She pointed at me. “When was the last time you prayed?” I quaked inwardly. It had been over a year since I had ritually washed myself and put on the white cloth and prostrated myself for the long ritual submission to God. “I don’t remember,” I mumbled. Sister Aziza pointed to other girls in the class. “And you? And you?” All but a few said they couldn’t remember.

We were not true Muslims, Sister Aziza sadly informed the abashed and suddenly silent classroom. Allah did not look on us with delight. He could see into our hearts, and He knew we were not dedicated to Him…

Sister Aziza believed in Hell, there was no question about that. But she didn’t emphasize fear, as all the other preachers did. She told us it was our choice. We could choose to submit to God’s pureness and light and earn a place in Heaven, or we could take the low road.

Her classes were very compelling, but I didn’t become an instant convert. And what was so great about Sister Aziza was that she didn’t mind… She didn’t mind if we didn’t pray five times a day. She told us God didn’t want us to do anything-not even pray-without the inner intention. He wanted true, deep submission: this is the meaning of Islam. “This is how ALlah and the Prophet want us to dress,” she told us [referencing her hidjab]. “But you should do it only when you’re ready, because if you do it earlier and you take the robe off again, you’ll only be sinning more. When you’re ready for it, you’ll choose, and then you’ll never take it off.”

Certainly Sister Aziza was a good woman. And she was incredibly devoted to her faith. Sister Aziza was unlike many of the other local religious leaders because she desired for her pupils to come to appreciate their faith rather than simply memorize the Qu’ran. Sister Aziza genuinely cared for her students. These qualities all applied to Kathy as well (swap Qu’ran for Bible, Allah for Jesus, etc.). Both women were intelligent, compassionate, devoted followers to their religions–but to two opposing religions. This underscores for me that religious experience is simply unreliable in determining religious faith.

What I find interesting is that many (not all, by any means) youth workers from religious sects are very high quality people. With little (if any) pay or praise, these men and women dedicate their spare time (or more) to edifying the next generation. But as often as not, they have no justifiable reasoning to support their religious beliefs. They propagate those beliefs hoping to make the world a better place. What is interesting that if Muslim youth workers and Christian youth workers (add any other religious sect you desire) are hoping to make the world a better place by propagating their beliefs in the next generation, and these sects are by definition opposed to one another, aren’t they simply creating a religiously schizophrenic and incredibly confused future generation?

As I mentioned, Kathy was an incredibly positive influence on my life. Additionally, it was another youth pastor who convinced (and somewhat coerced, heh) me into attending college. Likewise Sister Aziza was a profoundly positive influence on Ayaan. Meanwhile, however, these people filled both Ayaan and myself with a lot of baggage. Wouldn’t it have been better if Russ had worked with me through Big Brothers/Big Sisters and Kathy had influenced me through a community center? I think so.

One of the things that often frustrates me is that people, even incredibly intelligent people, often pose simple answers as solutions to very complex problems. Anyone who has read any bit about this blog knows that I am an unabashed agnostic-atheist. Over at d-C, Karen wrote an interesting article that I think adequately sums up where I stand as well. I recognize that I will never be in a position to be a prominent spokesman for atheism, nor would I really want to be. I am often frustrated, however, by those who are prominent spokespersons for atheism.

In 2007, Richard Dawkins gave a speech at TED in which he received a roar of laughter when he kiddingly announced he is suggesting “militant atheism.” Dawkins’ speech has a two-fold message: (1) Darwinism is corrosive to religion, (2) atheists should ‘come out’ and be confident about attacking religion as a whole. One of the fascinatingly naive underpinning philosophies of the major voices for atheism today (Dawkins, Hitchens, the fine folks at the “Rational Response Squad”) is that if humanity eliminates religion from the world, everything will simply ‘work itself out.’

Seriously?

Take this picture I’ve seen on dozens of websites and blogs:

As one captivated by the world of politics, I am familiar with the ideas of spin and shaping perceptions. I genuinely hope that some of the highly intelligent people who boast images such as this recognize that eliminating religion does not eliminate suffering and evil. One need look no further than Soviet Russia under Stalin to recognize that atheism does not equal utopia.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not switching sides. I think the world will be an increasingly better place as the influence of religion loses its potency. But religion is only one symptom of larger problems. Around the middle of the 20th century, physicist Enrico Fermi asked what became known as the “Fermi Paradox,” given the vastness of the universe, why do we see no evidence of advanced life? Carl Sagan, among others, has suggested (and this is and can only be speculation) that as life develops to the point of ability to communicate beyond their own planet, they may likely destroy themselves. For us, the increasing ability to observe the universe is occurring simultaneous to our ability to destroy the entire world easily and immediately (imagine if the Cuban Missile Crisis had gone the other way).

The history of humanity is a history of mutual destruction. Children learn history by reference of wars. The time between wars is often what is more fuzzy in our minds. We discovered sticks and used them to hit one another, then someone realized they could throw a stone from further away and avoid being hit by the other’s stick. Sticks and stones gave way to swords and bows. These gave way to muskets, which led to cannons and missiles and eventually nuclear warheads. Currently leaders in the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, Pakistan, India and Israel have the capability to destroy the world in moments. Not to mention any lost warheads from the breakup of the Soviet Union and attempts by Iran and North Korea to develop their own nuclear arsenals.

Humanity has a long way to go to learn to control its aggressive tendencies. I am hopeful though that this is possible. The Cold War ended without firing a nuclear warhead. Democracies allow forums for non-violent means of resolving conflict. The United Nations, perhaps impotent now, offers hope for a brighter future without war.

Would 9/11 have occurred without the fundamentalist religious dogmas of extremist Islam? Perhaps not. But without this religious influence, there would be other wars. There would be other non-religious extremist sects.

Now, I am not opposed to the concept of attempting to reduce the influence of religion on humanity. I desire as much as Richard Dawkins that the American dollar will one day replace “In God We Trust” with “In Ourselves We Trust.” But I am not naive enough to believe that stripping religions of their credentials will solve the worlds problems. Religion is but on symptom of the problems we face. The same people who follow religions will follow dynamic leaders or jump on the bandwagons of causes without truly examining them.

Atheism is qualitatively better than theism. Atheism is not, however, the answer to all the world’s problems.

There is a nagging question I struggled with during my last year at my Christian university. When I made public that I had turned away from the Christian faith, the responses were much more varied than I had anticipated. A few were blatantly negative: “I’m disappointed in you,” one girl told me. Most were simply curious. But the strangest thing happened, people who I had never spoken to before began suddenly popping up in my life. Most of these individuals are part of what I came to affectionately-not pejoratively-call the “God Squad.” It became obvious though that these people were concerned with one thing: getting me saved. Most of them were tactful enough to not go right for ‘the conversation,’ but it was fairly apparent that their only concern was that I was a lost soul who needed redeeming. And they were there to kill me with kindness for Jesus.

I didn’t mind, really. If a bit misled, and more than a bit patronizing, the gesture was at least well intentioned. In their defense, they had my eternal soul at heart. You have to appreciate the effort. But it does call into question the extent to which these people actually care about their non-Christian friends as people rather than projects. I am fairly certain that under normal circumstances I would never engage in any kind of friendship with the people I’m referring to, we simply don’t share much in common. Yet they were willing to transcend our differences with an alternative motive.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not throwing out an accusation that these Christians are disingenuous. But it seems to be an interesting psychological bit that they would be motivated to attempt befriending me, the heathen atheist sinner kid. It got me thinking about how I perceived my non-Christian friends when I myself was a believer, and I think I perhaps suffered from the same syndrome.

Interestingly, one of the largest barriers to my atheism was that I had an atheist friend. In my mind, the ultimate purpose of our friendship was for me to somehow learn how to answer his objections to faith and bring him back into the fold. I never would have admitted it then, but a big chunk of my time and effort into that friendship was spent working to get him “saved.” That kind of concerted effort to convert someone really clouds your perception of them. It wasn’t until after my de-conversion that I really learned to value him as a friend for who he was. I mean, that element was there before, but it was trumped by my quasi-conscious goal of getting him saved. That’s only one example, I can think of dozens of people who I invested time and energy in because I wanted to draw them toward faith.

The question, then, is can Christians really care about people as individuals? Or non-Christians doomed to remain generic unsaved souls in need of a savior? It’s a question I’ve been dealing with for a while now. It causes no small bit of paranoia in discerning the motivations of my Christian friends. I mean a lot of people are very obvious–the ones who all the sudden started saying “hi” to me when we would pass, but I had no recollection of ever meeting them before. But how many of the people who I was already friends with all the sudden reduced my personhood to “atheist” and nothing more?

It’s really a fascinating psychological question to wrestle with. By definition, Christians (evangelical, anyway) must attempt to propagate their faith by converting others. With that kind of driving motivation, how can they possibly care about the person as an individual? At the very least it creates a very fine line between genuine and patronizing. Certainly many Christian charity workers donate their time to the homeless because they are driven by compassion for the individual persons, but then how many Christians donate their time because the homeless represent a distinct example of the “lost?”

I did it. I survived my experience at a right-wing, evangelical Christian university. As of this past Saturday, I am no longer an undergrad student. I find my mind full of swirling thoughts about the whole experience, and I’m not sure if I can coherently put those thoughts to words. Regardless, I shall try.

#1: I chuckle to myself when I ponder the irony involved in my heading off to a Christian school in order to better understand my faith only to reject faith altogether. I can’t help but speculate that had I attended a state school I would most likely still be a person of faith. Living among Christians really pushed me to challenge the claims made by people of faith in ways that I doubt I would have elsewhere. I am glad for the experience, really. Had I gone to school elsewhere or nowhere at all, I would likely have indulged in a complacent faith for much of my life. Attending that particular school sparked a desire to learn about the truth-claims of my faith that allowed me to see the internal inconsistencies of religious belief. Beyond that, it was really a formative experience. I was forced to learn how to maneuver through a sub-culture in which I was part of a staunch minority. The intellectual and emotional lessons I learned as a result will certainly help me later in life.

#2: In hindsight I am absolutely certain that Christians simply cannot live in compliance with the tenets of their faith. For the past year I’ve always found some humor in many of the lyrics of songs sung during chapel services. “You’re the only one I need,” “My life is in You,” “This world is empty, pale, and cold compared to knowing You my Lord.” It is almost hilarious the claims made by Christians-and these kinds of claims are by far not limited to a few emotional songs-in comparison to the lives lived by Christians. I have never witnessed a Christian who has been able to purge him/herself of so-called worldly pursuits in favor of a more devoted faith. Walking through my Christian campus, I would see students clad in the same clothes as college age persons elsewhere. I always wanted to ask if Jesus would be willing to waste the extra $30 for the shirt at Abercrombie or American Eagle. Students at my school spent much of their time playing sports, watching YouTube, going to the movies, and a variety of other typical activities. There is nothing inherently wrong by these activities. However, you would think these students who are by and large convinced that 85% of the world is destined for the pits of hell would find more productive things to do with their time.

#3: Christianity (and other religious faith) is not necessarily bad. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think there is a justification for religious belief; however, there are Christians who are prompted by their faith to do great works of justice just as their are Christians who are prompted by their faith to commit great atrocities. Religious belief seems to me to be nothing more than a sociological phenomenon stemming from that desire to be a part of something bigger and a desire for eternal life. It’s existence is morally neutral. Ultimately, I think truth trumps non-truth every time, but there is no reason for me to believe that an abandonment of faith in the world will suddenly create an international utopia.

#4: I am ready to put struggles of faith behind me. At no time since the publication of my de-conversion to those at my school did I intellectually question the decision to abandon faith. From time to time, however, I would find myself drawn to the story of it all. A God who created each of us, cares about us deeply, a powerful enemy in Satan, a cosmic struggle for the souls of the world in which each individual may take part, certainty in the triumph of good over evil at the end of days, an eternity in paradise with a personal and benevolent God. The story can really be compelling emotionally. But the extent to which it is compelling is no greater than any other religious metanarrative. Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and countless others carry with them the same sense of inclusion and purpose. That is no way to choose which truth-claim to follow. Despite those psychological reasons to continue in faith (I have even from time to time considered joining a church for social reasons and faking faith), I am content in the great mysteries of the universe. I am content not holding to an unsubstantiated claim to absolute truth. I am ready to go on with my life in other settings where religious faith is peripheral.

#5: Christian communities are not the “real world.” One of the ongoing jokes among students at my school was that we lived in a “bubble.” A favorite professor of mine often countered that our school was “closer to reality than the fallen world on the outside.” I respectfully disagree. Some of the social phenomena I experienced at the school seem to be absolutely ridiculous. The degree to which people hone in on behaviors such as course language and the imbibing of alcoholic beverage is almost absurd. Use the word “fuck” in front of many of my friends from school and you will be met with utter shock, make a flippant remark about all of the individuals burning for all eternity and hell and you may very well incite rounds of laughter. Announce that you frequent the local bars to have a few drinks after a long day of work and you will find yourself the subject of a great deal of scrutiny, participate in gossip about which Christians are worse than others and you’ll find yourself right at home. It’s absurd the degree of certainty and assurance with which the students at that school will condemn certain behaviors as “sinful” and embrace others without pause. Further, I fear most of these people are completely unprepared to engage the outside world. Lest they remain in overwhelmingly Christian communities, these people are going to fall apart. I truly am concerned for the futures of my friends who fit the stereotypes of Christian home-schoolers; there is no way they are going to have an easy transition into the real world.

I’m not sure that anyone really reads this anymore, though the wordpress dashboard stats tell me otherwise. I’ve been on hiatus for quite a while now, but I haven’t forgotten about this, my humble little platform from which to spew my wisdoms and non-wisdoms about the world. The last semester I had an unusually strenuous course load in addition to three jobs, and so I found myself with less and less free time. Luckily, I graduated Saturday! In the coming days and weeks I hope to continue to spout my opinions and thoughts for any brave enough to attempt to reason through them.
What you can expect:

* some replies to my diametrically opposed friend Derek about Enlightenment thinkers, Alasdair MacIntyre, and ethics.

* thoughts on what it would take for me re-consider faith.

* some rambling about living in an evangelical Christian community, both while I identified with them and after my rejection of faith.

* my views on a variety of political issues. The only two things I’ve ever really loved are politics and religion–I’ve commented on one thus far, I’d like to take a stab at the other.

I’ve never been good at arithmetic, but I enjoy numbers.  There is something about quantitative analysis that I find fascinating.  Statistics, charts, graphs, numbers… they’re great. So the other day I was sitting in class and the idea struck me, just how much time did I spend exclusively on Christianity? Naturally, it is next to impossible to come up with a solid number.  As a Christian, my faith was pervasive through most all aspects of my life.  I’ve avoided the temptation to ‘double dip’ (ex. Inner monologue-type prayer while at work or school is not included; conversations about God are not included, etc.).  I counted up the average number of hours I spent in church, bible studies, doing devotions, etc. during my high school and college years. Of course they are only averages, I did not go to church every Sunday nor did I spend the same amount praying each day, but I’ve come up with what I think is a good approximation:  4,173 hours over a period of seven years spent exclusively on religious activities. That’s roughly 14.7% of my time devoted exclusively to religious activity.
               

I recognize that I am neither dedicated enough to spend all that time on one activity, nor am I future thinking enough to have spent that time doing exclusively productive things.  Not to mention that it is not as if all that time was a waste.  My time as a Christian has helped form me into the person I am now (for better or worse).  It was my Christian youth pastor that virtually forced me to attend college, avoiding what would most certainly have been a life working at a local factory in my home town.  Most of my friends are religious to varying degrees.  The point still remains, I feel somewhat foolish having dedicated that much time to something I ultimately abandoned.

While trying to avoid the stereotype of a young, angsty atheist, I have been on a Nietzsche kick in the past few weeks. The newfound interest in this fascinating, if depressing, philosopher was sparked when we began studying him again in one of my philosophy courses. It is too bad that Nietzsche lived such a pitiful (irony intended, for those who have read Nietzsche) life, because he will be remembered with negative connotations than for his brilliant, if at points wrong, thoughts.

One of my favorite pieces of his, which I have not read in years, is the famous parable, “The Madman.” This brilliant little piece out of The Gay Science is as follows:

Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: “I seek God! I seek God!”—As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated?—Thus they yelled and laughed.

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. “Whither is God?” he cried; “I will tell you. We have killed him—you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

“How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us—for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto.”

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. “I have come too early,” he said then; “my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars—and yet they have done it themselves.

It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: “What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?”

Friedrich Nietzsche,
the Parable of the Madman
The Gay Science, 125

What I find so interesting about this parable is Nietzsche’s indication that humanity, including the religious, have killed God. Perhaps more accurately, we have killed the idea of God. The madman in this parable is a harbinger of a nonreligious society. He is to atheism what John the Baptist was to Jesus.

The sharp critique here seems to be on those who have forsaken any kind of meaningful religious belief, but continue to act in a religious fashion. People have stopped living in a meaningfully Christian way, but have not begun living in a meaningfully nonChristian way. “What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?” I find it interesting that Nietzsche describes the churches as the tombs of God. In the institution itself that claims to serve a Risen God, the idea of God lays profoundly dead.

If Nietzsche’s madman came to soon, and we still yet are unable as a society to embrace the death of God, how long will it be? I find it both comforting and frustrating that the religious are in the midst of a valiant, but losing, fight for the survival of their beliefs. With each generation the world becomes a bit less religious. But it seems, from my limited twenty-one years of existence, that the religious become increasingly ‘enthusiastic.’ As the nominally religious denominations (Methodists, Presbyterians, etc.) die slowly, the fundamentalists thrive upon their own victim complex. How long until the tombs and sepulchers of God are finally abandoned?

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve been on here.  Life has been busy lately… midterms and papers, work and family have kept me pretty bogged down.  But I thought I should check in to my little world here, so here I am.

Countdown to graduation (or emancipation, as I like to look at it) is at 49 days.  It’s exciting for many reasons, most obviously that I’ve paid my dues as an undergrad and am ready to move on.  More importantly though, I’m starting to realize that soon I will leave a world dominated by evangelical Christianity.  I’ve often reminded myself that atheism is not a comprehensive worldview, it is not a unified group of people and it is not the end of knowledge; for me, my de-conversion from Christianity was only the beginning of a new chapter in exploring life.  In 49 days, I think that will truly come to fruition.

Now, I think ideas matter.  And I think the cause of moving a progressive, nontheistic agenda forward is important.  But my passions lay elsewhere.  I cannot wait to be out in the world doing what I want to do without having to confront religious language and dogma at every corner.  I’m ready to move forward with my life.

People at my school often refer to the campus as the “Nazarene bubble” because life here really is not normal.  Students here exist in a static subculture that is structured very different than the rest of the world.  I can’t wait for my escape from the bubble.  Mostly I look forward to having my (lack of) religious views becoming less of a defining characteristic of who I am, and just a small part of the mosaic of my life.  I look forward to engaging in political debate that doesn’t rest on interpretation of Christian Scripture, I look forward to eating meals that don’t akwardly begin with prayers, I look forward to conversations that don’t center around people’s “spiritual health.”

This place that I have spent the past four years is an enclave of a dying idea.  I take great comfort in knowing that on the outside world, things operate differently.  Sure, there are religious people.  And religious faith still permeates  through all aspects of society.  But religious faith is undoubtedly much more dilluted out there than it is in here.

49 days. 

When I was a Christian, I would oftentimes become frustrated while attempting to understand a moral sentiment put forth through biblical text.  Why in the world would God make absolute morality so ambiguous?  When Moses wrote, “thou shalt not kill,” did he mean “thou shalt not kill” or did he mean “thou shalt not kill without just cause?”  What about abortion? War? Poverty? At times a golden nugget in Scipture would pop out that seemed to make things clear, but there was always a level of ambivalence that I felt was never fully appreciated by the mass of Christianity.

Upon looking to my struggles through developing a proper hermeneutic of Scripture to find a moral system fair to the text, and the supposed author of the text, I cannot help but laugh.  Wading through the waters of religious dogma to discover an absolute morality seems so much easier than developing a moral system beyond a conception of a divine transcendent being which by necessity decrees certain actions “good” and certain actions “bad.”  When I left Christianity–in fact, in my preparation to leave Christianity, even–I recognized that I would somehow need to construct (or not construct, perhaps) a new moral system.

So where to begin? Well first I had to assess if in fact there was morality.  Without Christianity, is moral nihilism the path to go?  Or perhaps there is morality, but it is subjective.  Maybe there is still some sort of objective morality existing independent of humanity.  What a mess!  As I collected my thoughts and began to sift through the arguments and counter arguments, I found myself most convinced by the though of Spinoza (there is nothing that is inherently ‘good’ or ‘evil’), Hume (moral values simply correspond to our social engrained sentiments and passions) and more recently Bernard Williams (actions are described as “good” or “bad” not in a universal sense, but through individual passions and social construction).

In other words, no objective morality exists.  There is no ethical system that was created from the beginning of all time and by which mankind must operate or face some kind of posthumous torturous punishment.  Warning! Warning! No morality = promiscuous sex and murder of passion and selling drugs to children!

Wrong.

Yes, I would deny that there is (or at least there is any evidence for) an objective system of morality by which all humanity should conform its behavior, but that does not stop the development of morality.  At this point, equivocation becomes a problem.  There is no morality, but we can develop morality.  Isn’t that a paradox.  Allow me to clarify, unless otherwise specified, I intend “morality” to mean “a system of principles and actions which are considered by an individual or group to be good.” Again, by “good” I mean in a very simple sense to be “beneficial, of a positive consequence.”

Well why in the world would I want to construct a system  of principles and actions that are good.  If there exists no morality, I am indeed free to murder the guy that cut me off on the freeway, or take the purse full of money held by the well-to-do woman in the supermarket.  Enter the influence of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jaques Rosseau (ironic perhaps, because they are moral objectivists).

Hobbes speaks of a ’state of nature’ in which each human is involved in a ‘war against all’ because they exist in perfect ‘autonomy.’ In this state of nature, I am perfectly free to murder tha man who cut me off or to take the purse of the rich woman.  It is my right, because my liberties are not restrained by a moral code.  It won’t take me long to realize that those individuals are also perfectly free to murder me or steal my property.  Cue the war against all.  Solution? My conscious decision to surrender my right to murder or steal in exchange for their decision to do the same. Wow, we just created the beginning of civil society.

Now there are distinct differenes between Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, but for my purpose here, they each put forth a common theme: social contract theory.  I deny the existence of any moral absolute, I am perfectly free to do as I wish.  For a purely egoistic motive, I surrender some of those rights to secure my own protection.  Thus, the development of a system of “morality,” I not submit myself to a system of principles and actions intended to promote a form of common benefit.

For me, the story doesn’t end there.  This seems to be incomplete.  A description of morality develops rather than a prescription of what morality should be.  What constitutes the common good? How do we get there? What criteria should I follow to make decisions?

Enter here the influence of John Stuart Mill and other Millian utilitarians.  Though I find Aristotelian virtue ethics and Kantian deontic ethics to be tempting, they are far from satisfying (though for the sake of time and energy, I won’t get into why just now).  The influence of Mill on me is twofold: first the idea of liberty (quanitly enough, from his work On Liberty) and the idea of utilitarianism (you guessed it, from the book Utilitarianism).

In chapter five of On Liberty, Mill puts forth the idea that there are two maxims by which we should be governed.  He says, “The maxims are, first, that the individual is not accountable to society for his actions, in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself… Secondly, that for such actions as are prejudicial to the interests of others, the individual is accountable, and may be subjected either to social or legal punishment.”  Clever guy.  That is, an action that has no affect–positive or negative–on those around me, has no place in the sphere of social regulation (though arguably, every action has infinite effects… but thats off topic).  So *gasp* interracial couples or homosexual couples can marry.  At the same time, when my action begins to have consequences outside of myself, then I am fair game for moral judgment from my society.  So selling drugs on the playground is wrong.

Also through the thought of Mill, and commentators on Mill down to the present day, I draw upon the idea of utilitarianism.  By itself, utilitarianism seems to be an incomplete ethical theory (most good for the most people, but what defines “good?” and just how exactly are you going to calculate the amount of good an action does?).  However, when one bases a moral system on the idea of secular social contract (there is no inherent “good” and “evil,” but as a society we agree to certain standards of “good” action and “bad” action), it becomes quite possibly to use utilitarianism as the structure through which an ethical decision is made.

So persons X, Y and Z decide to end their war for resources R and territory T (social contract). How then do they determine that action B is better than action C for the community? Say action B provides a high degree of happiness (philosophically speaking, satisfaction) to person X but an extremely low degree of happiness to persons Y and Z. Action C, on the other hand, provides a moderate degree of happiness for persons X and Y and a high degree of happiness for person Z.  Well, action C seems to be the reasonable choice. Person X, then, agrees to forgo his potential for a higher degree of hapiness for the sake of the community.  At the same time, person X can rest assured that perhaps later action D will be more beneficial to him, etc.

 Now much of this may be rambling nonsense, but this is how my quest for developing an ethical system is progressing so far.  The capstone course for philosophy majors is the production of a philosophical research paper during their final semester.  I intend this to be the rough idea driving my paper: that social contractiarianism is the best explanation for moral systems and qualitiative, egalitarian utilitarianism is the best structure for that moral system.

Perhaps working through this mess of thoughts is harder than discovering the correct hermeneuetic through which to read the Bible, but it has been, and hope will continue to be, much more satisfying.

“What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.”  Friedrich Nietzche, Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 153

Anyone who knows me knows that I love the West Wing. I watch very little TV, but I could watch the West Wing all day long. During the show’s run, it spoke eloquently about religion many times. Here are some favorite intersections of the West Wing and religion:

In this scene, President Bartlett lays the smack down on a Christian radio show host who calls homosexuality an abomination. Bartlett eloquently points out that evangelicals ignore many other uncomfortable portions of Leviticus:

President Bartlett and his wife talk about the service after church. Mostly Bartlett complains about the lack of oratorical skills of the preacher, but he also brings up the idea of being “subject to one another” that is discussed in Ephesians. This is one of those golden nuggets that I have kept with me after leaving Christianity. One of the reasons Christianity is so successful is that, when it works, the individuals of the faith community come together and support one another:

Senator Vinick (the Republican Presidential candidate in the seventh season) and President Bartlett share a few moments in the kitchen of the White House, where they discuss religion. Vinick is frustrated that candidates must pass a religious test. The Senator shares that the reason he stopped going to church is because he read the bible cover to cover, and could no longer believe in the God he read about:

Congressman Santos (the Democratic candidate for president in the seventh season) discusses the importance of the seperation of church and state:

One of the most compelling scenes from the entire series, from the episode “Two Cathedrals.” In the National Cathedral, President Bartlett expresses his fury at God. When he is speaking Latin, he says (roughly) “Thank you, Lord.Am I to believe these things from a righteous God, a just God, a wise God? To Hell with your punishments I was your servant, your messenger on the earth, I did my duty. The Hell with your punishments! And to Hell with you!” When I was a Christian, I could definately relate to this low point of faith:

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