No, I didn’t make it. I wish I had:
For the record, I don’t hate religious people. That doesn’t stop the rest of the comic from being both hilarious and true.
11 Responses to “An Open Letter To Religious People”
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No, I didn’t make it. I wish I had:
For the record, I don’t hate religious people. That doesn’t stop the rest of the comic from being both hilarious and true.
That’s totally Garfield’s eyes in the 6th last panel.
Rationalizations are only “Pathetic” to those who refuse to be rational. What we have here is
an emotional kneejerk response. But that’s okay. I and those who are truly religious have no
need of your respect. It would in fact be superfluous. All we have need of is the Grace of
God.
I think that some people are “born religious”. That is, they have either a genetic, or a strongly socialized predisposition to seek attachment to an organized body of belief. I believe this predisposition is inherent in virtually everyone, although it is stronger in some than in others. In this sense, I see being “religiously affiliated” a lot like I see being gay. For the same reasons that I don’t have a problem with gay people, I don’t have a problem with religious people. Likewise, I dislike people who disparage religious people for predjudicial reasons in much the same manner that I dislike people who are predjudiced against homosexuals.
As we have no good reason to accept the premise that there IS NOT a creator deity (and a lot of evidence suggesting that there might be, like the incredibly sensitive balance of fundamental universal forces that makes life as we know it possible, for example), I think that the rational position when confronted by questions of a spiritual nature is to say “not enough data to draw a definitive conclusion”. Accepting an athesitic view of the universe seems to me to be just as illogical (and faith-based) and being 100% certain of the alternative.
Ryan
Thanks I needed that. I feel refreshed again.
Yeah, the whole “and I hate you” part has got me quite a few remarks in-person. For the record: I don’t hate religious people. That part of the comic isn’t why I love it. I love how well it points out the ridiculousness of religious belief.
As for “not enough data”, it’s absolutely true. However when a rational mind doesn’t have any data to prove or disprove something they have to fall back on Occam’s Razor. I prefer to bring up The Dragon In My Garage from Carl Sagan’s excellent book “The Demon Haunted World” as it tells the tale much better than a simple “don’t assume more than you have to” rule. The comic covers it quite nicely with the Santa Claus mention.
O scientific rationalist…you are like a carpneter who likes her hammer so much that she uses it for every task! You are fooled by the seeming power of your intellect and its alleged knowing.
Truly, it is a useful tool, but prone to self congratulatory ‘revelations’ which are often no more than patterns which happen to delight you (ie. your cultural biases) to impose upon the world which have no superficial contradictions internally. There can be no external check or balance on this knowledge, as you cannot see outside of your perceptions. You call this the seat of all knowledge!
But there are other knowledges. Have you heard the story of Nasradin, the Sufi holy fool?
Nasradin was searching furiously on his hands and knees under a streetlight one evening, when his neighbour approached him. “what are you looking for, Nasradin?” “Alas, I have lost the key to my house!” replied the mula. “Oh, and you have lost it under this streetlight?” replied his friend. “No, I lost it out there” replied Nasradin, pointing off into the darkness. “Then why are you looking for it over here?” replied his friend, confused. “Because there is more light here, of course!” replied Nasradin.
And so it is, it is said, for one who looks for God with her intellect. If you want to find God, you need to look with your heart.
If I’m going to look for something, I’m going to use my eyes. Hearts can’t see — all they do is pump blood throughout your body. Sheesh.
Ok, seriously. Of course you’re using “heart” to mean “vague feeling”. That’s a terrible way to determine your worldview. “Gee, this book of 2000 year old musings of a desert cult sure feel like the right thing… even though it contradicts itself… and tells me I should kill whores and homosexuals… and… uh…”
Wait a minute… when you start thinking and actually *looking* at it, it all looks like a load of crap, doesn’t it? That’s why they call not being rational “irrational”.
It’s easy to discredit the ancient myths about God. I agree about the plagues and smiting. They are but the immaginings of primative rationalizers as they tried to understand their world. They at first became superstition, then dogmas. The problem with that is; the further you get into dogma the further you are from true relogious experience.
What perhaps you don’t understand is that people throughout the ages have had religious experiences. That is to say they have actualy come into contact with God or other spiritual entities. Once you have that experience you don’t want to loose it. It’s a whole ‘nother’ realm of experience; more profound than anything you can experience in the physical world.
These misunderstood contacts have indeed given rise to many strange isms. The fact remains however that God is real and for those who don’t get bogged down in dogmas or the like he is contactable and knowable. The search to allign one’s on self with his will and purpose is the ultimate quest and you don’t have to subscribe to any Earthly religion to be a religious person. I believe in God for much the same reason I believe in you. I read your blog and believe me the contacts I have had with God were far more intimate and far more real.
You’re such a literalist, Puck. You see the term ‘heart’ has many meanings although I would question whether ‘vague feeling’ is one of them. Of course when people speak of knowing with one’s heart or loving with one’s heart they aren’t talking about a physical organ either. They are talking about a certain capacity of the mind which transcends the physical. Even used that way I can think of at least 3 different things it means.
Some have only the capacity to understand the physical. To them the spiritual must seem very unreal. I think everyone has the ability to experienc on that level though. People who have long denighed the reality of the spirit often describe is as ’seeing the light’ or having ‘found new eyes’. Go for it if you have the guts. Once you experience it you’ll be changed.
People throughout the ages have also had alien experiences. Some people have had the government talking to them through their teeth. There are crazy people everywhere, and stories about them can easily grow via a worldwide long-term game of telephone.
“More profound then anything you can experience in the physical world,” is just a pretty way of saying “completely untestable because it’s just like it didn’t happen”.
“The fact remains however that God is real” is a complete non-sequitur. That fact doesn’t, in fact, remain. If anything you’re being very accepting that he probably doesn’t and then you give a complete turnaround. You’re saying “ok, yeah, there are people who believe crazy things that aren’t real, but MY crazy thing that isn’t real is real, honest!”
I’d love to hear about your contacts with God. Not in the “he makes me happy” or “knowing about him gives my life meaning” but actual concrete “I was eating Count Chocula and He came to me as a glowing light and told me that cereal based on cartoon undead was sinful and I should throw it away”.
“Some have only the capacity to understand the physical” is followed then by “long denied the reality of the spirit”. Where’s your spirit-o-meter? How can you tell what spirit is? Are there people without it? Can we measure it? How do we know animals don’t have one? Or do they, and then how do we know that? How exactly does something that isn’t real have a “reality”?
It doesn’t. It’s just a word used to describe the incredibly complicated reasons that human beings are self-aware but aren’t always understanding of how or why. “God” is another shortcut word that we have used to describe “things we don’t know”. It makes hard questions simple and lets you move on, in much the same way a parent will answer a child’s question “why is the sky blue?” with “Magic!”
The problem is that we know why the sky is blue, and as our knowledge grows, we’re learning more and more that we once attributed to a great unknowable supreme being. We know how old the Earth is, we’re understanding how speciation came to be, what the Sun is, and so on. Every step of the way there are people clinging to their shorthand words for how the Universe works, and every step they have to be overcome by those that open their eyes and discover the truth.
I’m not surprised you take umbarge with my post. I don’t mean to be offensive. Just let me say there are many thing you can not weigh measure or detect with any of the senses. that doesn’t make them unreal or imaginary. We have developed machines to detect many things we used to be unaware of like gamma x rays forinstance. that doesn’t mean that before we developed that capability they didn’t exist.
When you deal with the spiritual realm you’re not dealing with a thing which is detectable by any of the methods you are willing to accept. I find it a bit arrogant of you however to claim that because you have not developed a method of detecting these things that no one else has.
Within the circutry of your mind there exists the potential to contact and know the devine just as through this internet link I can contact and know you to some extent.I know this because I learned to do it just as I learned to use this PC. A man could be too superstitious to attempt to use a computer. I know people like that. The whole concept of the internet makes them uncomfortable therefore they don’t attempt and don’t develop the skills to use it. I can immagine a person who had no knowledge of such things swearing it was impossible when told of the things you can do with a PC. A person can be that way about spiritual things as well.
There is much of reality which can’t be measured by the laws of physics (or some kind of o-meter)because much exists outside those laws. Those things we call spiritual and once you begin to explore them you can prove to yourself their existence.Religion is simply the attempt of man to explore those things.
When you speak of religion you seem to be fixiated on religion based on ancient myth. The are the crystalized and dogmatized beliefs of the ancients. True religion is a personal experience and it is more complex than anything yet immagined by science.
I scoffed at such thing for half my life as well so I don’t fault you for disbelieving. I hope you do develop an interest in it sometime though. It’s fascinating.