Brother Daniel
06 Apr 2009, 02:28 PM
I was just looking through some of the verbiage I wrote for myself when I was going through my deconversion a few years ago. Just for fun, I thought I'd share a bit.
Fear of Flying
1. Introduction
Stand at the top edge of a high cliff, with no barrier to keep you from falling off. Most people find this scenario frightening. If you ask someone why it is frightening, they will speak of the danger of falling. Dig deeper, and you will find, I think, that the fear of jumping plays as much a role as the fear of falling accidentally. It is physically very easy to step off the edge, and our awareness of that ease, however dim, underlies our fear. This fear of jumping is the quintessential example of the fear of self – the fear of one’s own choices.
As another example of fear of self, I sometimes have a feeling that is very similar to that of standing on a cliff edge, when I realise how (physically) easy it would be to do something socially suicidal – such as interrupting an important presentation by standing, disrobing, and screaming venomously hate-filled slogans against some ethnic group.
Many people would treat this confession as a reason to label me neurotic, and would laugh, perhaps, at any suggestion that similar fears are widespread. But I would suggest that traditional religion derives much of its strength from exactly this kind of fear.
2. Imagination and Barriers
Imagination is a key component of self-fear. It is easy to imagine oneself stepping off a cliff. It is easy to imagine oneself shouting venomous slogans. There are innumerable disturbing choices that we can make, theoretically, at every turn. These possibilities are indeed frightening, unless they are rendered harmless by being seen as unrealistic.
If I remind myself that I have no desire to draw attention to myself by shouting political slogans – especially slogans with no resemblance to my actual political views – then the fear of doing so is muted or eliminated. If I remind myself that I have no desire to step off a cliff, then the fear of stepping off is eliminated (and then I can deal more effectively with the still-real possibility of falling off accidentally).
What if I cannot convince myself that I am unlikely to make destructive choices? Then it helps to have an external barrier, either real or imagined. A rail at the top of the cliff will stop me from stepping off. I can still climb over the rail, but that takes several seconds, during which my self-preservation instinct can reassert itself over my (hypothetical) momentary impulse toward self-destruction. If the rail is badly made, the actual danger of my falling off may be increased – but as long as I am unaware that it is badly made, it will be effective in quelling my fears.
This is where religion comes in.
3. Psychopathic Exemplars: The Possibility of Evil
What, exactly, stops any of us from degenerating morally to the level of Hitler or Stalin? For now, it is sufficient to observe that we do not descend to that level because we do not want to – but that answer is obviously far from complete. In general, it is a difficult question to answer. And theistic religion capitalises on that very difficulty.
Christianity in particular denies that we ever naturally want to do what is right. We are all “totally depraved” (in the charming language of Calvinism); there is really nothing in ourselves that stops any of us from descending to Hitler’s level and beyond. Whatever impulses we see in ourselves to behave well are credited to God’s influence. And the existence of such impulses in unbelievers is seen as God’s continued effort to reach out to those unbelievers – who stand in continual danger of being “given up” by God, released to their natural, evil state.
The possibility of total moral degeneration functions, for the Christian, much like my occasional fear of social self-destruction. Jesus pushes the Christian to the edge of the moral abyss and forces her to look inside. “You want to jump in,” he says, “but I am stopping you.” So she clings to him out of fear, all the while failing to see that she has been deceived. She really has no desire to jump! But being unaware of the truth about herself, she needs to quell her fear by imagining an external entity that stops her from jumping.
4. Epistemological Swamps: The Possibility of Absurdity
It is not only moral degeneration that scares a theist. Intellectual degeneration is also a significant fear. What stops us from engaging in a life of believing only that which we find “convenient”, in opposition to what is rational? For those who are used to thinking of belief as a matter of choice, the possibility is frightening indeed. But in fact, there is nothing to fear from that mechanism; those who have identified it are already practically immune to it.
The traditional religious mindset needs an easily-identifiable foundation for all thought. “You must base your life on something,” goes the argument. “I base mine on the Bible.” In fact, we all – believer and unbeliever alike – base our lives on the way we interpret our experiences. But who can describe the process in detail? Few, if any. And theistic religion capitalises on that very difficulty, just as it does with the difficulty in understanding the real processes that underlie human morality.
To a Christian, freedom of thought is not only morally questionable; it is intellectually questionable as well. On what basis, for example, can we judge a piece of work as “good” or “bad” in any sense whatsoever? More generally, how do we know anything? These are tricky questions, of course. But among Christians, these questions are not only asked by those who are genuinely interested in philosophy. They are also asked on an ad hoc defensive basis: Any suggestion of the Bible’s imperfection can be countered by raising questions about how, in general, one can ever judge anything to be imperfect. Such a tactic proves nothing, unless it is that there is no end to the questions that can be raised on any topic when one wishes to generate confusion!
The Bible, as an easily-identifiable foundational work, functions as a barrier to quell the (groundless) fear of intellectual degeneration. The Christian imagines that those who have not adopted the Bible (or, at least, some rival document such as the Qur’an) as the authoritative foundation of their thought are drifting in an intellectual wasteland . By disqualifying himself from making any judgements in the absence of such a foundation, the Christian inoculates himself against any impulse to examine the worthiness of the Bible to function as that foundation.
Another manifestation of the fear of intellectual freedom is the defensive use of the observation that those who criticise Christianity (or a specific form of it) often fail to propose a system with which to replace it. The irrelevance of this observation is clear: Imagine a jury disregarding a solid alibi and finding the defendant guilty, merely because the defence team had failed to identify another suspect!
5. The Abhorrent Vacuum: The Possibility of Meaninglessness
Religion provides a framework within which the adherent can interpret her experiences. In addition to its intellectual significance, on which I have already commented, this characteristic of religion addresses a deeper psychological need: the need to feel that life is (in principle) meaningful. The person departing from the Church is asked: “With what will you fill the vacuum?” And I respond: Vacuum? What vacuum? I find no empty space that needs filling by any religion.
The degeneration into a feeling of meaninglessness is a psychological phenomenon to which most people are immune. That immunity and the exceptions to it are difficult to explain. And again, theistic religion capitalises on the difficulty: It confronts its adherents with the possibility of catastrophic degeneration, and presents itself, falsely, as the barrier that prevents it.
6. Conclusion: Human Autonomy
Many Christians fear the possibilities of moral, intellectual, and existential degeneration. These catastrophes are seen, erroneously, as likely (or even inevitable) results of human autonomy. The encouragement of such fears is yet another mechanism by which Christianity keeps people in its grasp.
The birthright of all humans is free, unfettered, autonomous thinking. The fear of autonomy displayed by Christians is both comic and tragic – like a bird refusing to fly, for fear of heights.
Fear of Flying
1. Introduction
Stand at the top edge of a high cliff, with no barrier to keep you from falling off. Most people find this scenario frightening. If you ask someone why it is frightening, they will speak of the danger of falling. Dig deeper, and you will find, I think, that the fear of jumping plays as much a role as the fear of falling accidentally. It is physically very easy to step off the edge, and our awareness of that ease, however dim, underlies our fear. This fear of jumping is the quintessential example of the fear of self – the fear of one’s own choices.
As another example of fear of self, I sometimes have a feeling that is very similar to that of standing on a cliff edge, when I realise how (physically) easy it would be to do something socially suicidal – such as interrupting an important presentation by standing, disrobing, and screaming venomously hate-filled slogans against some ethnic group.
Many people would treat this confession as a reason to label me neurotic, and would laugh, perhaps, at any suggestion that similar fears are widespread. But I would suggest that traditional religion derives much of its strength from exactly this kind of fear.
2. Imagination and Barriers
Imagination is a key component of self-fear. It is easy to imagine oneself stepping off a cliff. It is easy to imagine oneself shouting venomous slogans. There are innumerable disturbing choices that we can make, theoretically, at every turn. These possibilities are indeed frightening, unless they are rendered harmless by being seen as unrealistic.
If I remind myself that I have no desire to draw attention to myself by shouting political slogans – especially slogans with no resemblance to my actual political views – then the fear of doing so is muted or eliminated. If I remind myself that I have no desire to step off a cliff, then the fear of stepping off is eliminated (and then I can deal more effectively with the still-real possibility of falling off accidentally).
What if I cannot convince myself that I am unlikely to make destructive choices? Then it helps to have an external barrier, either real or imagined. A rail at the top of the cliff will stop me from stepping off. I can still climb over the rail, but that takes several seconds, during which my self-preservation instinct can reassert itself over my (hypothetical) momentary impulse toward self-destruction. If the rail is badly made, the actual danger of my falling off may be increased – but as long as I am unaware that it is badly made, it will be effective in quelling my fears.
This is where religion comes in.
3. Psychopathic Exemplars: The Possibility of Evil
What, exactly, stops any of us from degenerating morally to the level of Hitler or Stalin? For now, it is sufficient to observe that we do not descend to that level because we do not want to – but that answer is obviously far from complete. In general, it is a difficult question to answer. And theistic religion capitalises on that very difficulty.
Christianity in particular denies that we ever naturally want to do what is right. We are all “totally depraved” (in the charming language of Calvinism); there is really nothing in ourselves that stops any of us from descending to Hitler’s level and beyond. Whatever impulses we see in ourselves to behave well are credited to God’s influence. And the existence of such impulses in unbelievers is seen as God’s continued effort to reach out to those unbelievers – who stand in continual danger of being “given up” by God, released to their natural, evil state.
The possibility of total moral degeneration functions, for the Christian, much like my occasional fear of social self-destruction. Jesus pushes the Christian to the edge of the moral abyss and forces her to look inside. “You want to jump in,” he says, “but I am stopping you.” So she clings to him out of fear, all the while failing to see that she has been deceived. She really has no desire to jump! But being unaware of the truth about herself, she needs to quell her fear by imagining an external entity that stops her from jumping.
4. Epistemological Swamps: The Possibility of Absurdity
It is not only moral degeneration that scares a theist. Intellectual degeneration is also a significant fear. What stops us from engaging in a life of believing only that which we find “convenient”, in opposition to what is rational? For those who are used to thinking of belief as a matter of choice, the possibility is frightening indeed. But in fact, there is nothing to fear from that mechanism; those who have identified it are already practically immune to it.
The traditional religious mindset needs an easily-identifiable foundation for all thought. “You must base your life on something,” goes the argument. “I base mine on the Bible.” In fact, we all – believer and unbeliever alike – base our lives on the way we interpret our experiences. But who can describe the process in detail? Few, if any. And theistic religion capitalises on that very difficulty, just as it does with the difficulty in understanding the real processes that underlie human morality.
To a Christian, freedom of thought is not only morally questionable; it is intellectually questionable as well. On what basis, for example, can we judge a piece of work as “good” or “bad” in any sense whatsoever? More generally, how do we know anything? These are tricky questions, of course. But among Christians, these questions are not only asked by those who are genuinely interested in philosophy. They are also asked on an ad hoc defensive basis: Any suggestion of the Bible’s imperfection can be countered by raising questions about how, in general, one can ever judge anything to be imperfect. Such a tactic proves nothing, unless it is that there is no end to the questions that can be raised on any topic when one wishes to generate confusion!
The Bible, as an easily-identifiable foundational work, functions as a barrier to quell the (groundless) fear of intellectual degeneration. The Christian imagines that those who have not adopted the Bible (or, at least, some rival document such as the Qur’an) as the authoritative foundation of their thought are drifting in an intellectual wasteland . By disqualifying himself from making any judgements in the absence of such a foundation, the Christian inoculates himself against any impulse to examine the worthiness of the Bible to function as that foundation.
Another manifestation of the fear of intellectual freedom is the defensive use of the observation that those who criticise Christianity (or a specific form of it) often fail to propose a system with which to replace it. The irrelevance of this observation is clear: Imagine a jury disregarding a solid alibi and finding the defendant guilty, merely because the defence team had failed to identify another suspect!
5. The Abhorrent Vacuum: The Possibility of Meaninglessness
Religion provides a framework within which the adherent can interpret her experiences. In addition to its intellectual significance, on which I have already commented, this characteristic of religion addresses a deeper psychological need: the need to feel that life is (in principle) meaningful. The person departing from the Church is asked: “With what will you fill the vacuum?” And I respond: Vacuum? What vacuum? I find no empty space that needs filling by any religion.
The degeneration into a feeling of meaninglessness is a psychological phenomenon to which most people are immune. That immunity and the exceptions to it are difficult to explain. And again, theistic religion capitalises on the difficulty: It confronts its adherents with the possibility of catastrophic degeneration, and presents itself, falsely, as the barrier that prevents it.
6. Conclusion: Human Autonomy
Many Christians fear the possibilities of moral, intellectual, and existential degeneration. These catastrophes are seen, erroneously, as likely (or even inevitable) results of human autonomy. The encouragement of such fears is yet another mechanism by which Christianity keeps people in its grasp.
The birthright of all humans is free, unfettered, autonomous thinking. The fear of autonomy displayed by Christians is both comic and tragic – like a bird refusing to fly, for fear of heights.