Taboos and -ism's

Everyone knows it is a taboo to criticize religions and faith in general. That is precisely why faiths have survived so long, because they say that questioning them is bad manners. If it wouldn't, the inherent implausibility of faith and contradictions of the simplest logic that religions make, would have made the whole phenomenons crumble and disappear.

Interestingly, I recently discovered another taboo that works in the same way, although it is much more mundane. Namely, I noticed that to criticize the idea "hey, let's go for a beer" is a taboo. At least in one of my circles of friends, there is a strong social stigma associated with not-drinking-alcohol. People seem to assume that people, that do not drink at a party or dinner at the local pub, would destroy the mood, that such people are boring people. It seems that drinking is associated with group cohesion in such a way that non-drinking is perceived as a threat to group unity. As if, "If you don't drink you're not one of us."

While I see group cohesion as a positive force for happiness, it also robs us from the freedom of choice, which impacts happiness negatively. The absurdity of the situation is easily revealed by asking "Am I not good enough as myself, but only if I drink?" and "Why is it a problem for you if I don't drink?".

Another aspect is that people encouraging you to drink, with a "C'mon!", implicitly assumes that everyone will have more fun when drunk. Personally, I have lately found that drunken small-talk is just devoid of any real value. In this sense, I feel that people become boring when they get drunk, not the other way around. There are many exceptions to this, though, in the sense that many people that are interesting sober are interesting also when tipsy.

What this leads me to is that group cohesion is a strange animal. A sense of unity with peers is generally a positive force. However, generally all ways of maintaining cohesion can destroy all the positive effects and, worse, bring unhappiness. By design, most tools for maintaining cohesion are exclusive through "You have to be X, or you're not one of us." Here the "you're not one of us" -part is meant to be (and it is) a severe punishment.

This principle seems to apply in all cases where I recognize group cohesion as a strong force, including all theism/religions (infidels should die!), nationalism (you're not patriotic if you oppose, say, the war in Iraq), racism, criminal gangs etc.

The question that then remains is, is group cohesion possible without the negative effects? I would argue "Yes." People united by common goals, aspirations, attitudes or character, will often experience a feeling of unity without need for external maintenance of cohesion. In this perspective, positive group cohesion appears only when the group has a solid and well-founded purpose. Groups with only a weak purpose and weak motivation for unity are the ones who need to punish straying sheep. Positive group cohesion is then also an inclusive phenomenon, where all those whose internal motivation is the same can be included in the group, whereas negative group cohesion is an exclusive phenomenon, where all those who don't fulfil the external requirements are excluded from the group.

In essence, it follows, that the motivations to maintain theism/religions, nationalism, racism and criminal gangs are weak. The sense of inner purpose that these groups carry are so weak, that they must punish dissidents, otherwise the groups would fade away. What I find striking is that so many of these weak groups are known as -ism's. Is there a pattern? Perhaps this is also why many feel that the word atheism so badly represents the phenomenon.

Personally, the lessons I have to learn from this are then:

1. As a tutor, mentor, teacher and employer, I must strive to generate a common internal sense of purpose in my students and employees so strong, that group cohesion emerges.
2. As an atheist, I have to avoid partisan thinking, avoid construction of a them (theists) against us (atheists) -spirit, and openly participate in constructive discussions. By accepting all people as themselves, could prove to be pivotal in opening the minds of people.
3. As a person, I should strive to accept all people as themselves.

Edit: As an afterthought, I just realised one more pattern: In countries where religions are most accepting, most inclusive in their character (and thus follow their own teaching the best), are also countries where religions are fading away. For example, in Scandinavia, there is a very accepting atmosphere overall in the whole society, including religions. There, also churches are very weak. On the other hand, in the US, which is infamous for its exclusionist attitudes (esp. with respect to religions and patriotism), churches go strong.

Atheism and classic vocal music

I recently realised that I have a problem that has been disturbing me for quite a while even though I was not concious of this problem. I just had a queer feeling that something was not right.

It is all connected to the fact that I was really excited about singing old music, mostly renaissance and baroque. For anyone who know anything about these genres, also knows that a majority of the music in these genres is sacral in nature. For me, as an atheist, that poses a problem. Let me explain you why.

There are two different parts. Firstly, I do not believe in Jahve, so singing "I love god." is phony. I feel phony. A significant part of singing is the feeling - you have to feel the thing that you are saying. Singing without feeling is a technical executions that has nothing to do with music. I admit that I am unable to feel the feeling "I love god". I did not become a very good singer.

The obvious counter-argument is acting. Actors regularly act feelings that they would not normally feel. So why could I not just act as if I would, in fact, "love god"? Which brings us to the second part. Singing "I love god" in a Christian context is a whole other thing as singing "I love god" in an ancient Viking or Greek context, where god would, respectively, refer to Thor or Zeus. Namely, while Viking and ancient Greek religions have fallen into history, Christianity is (still) alive and kicking. In other words, whether the religions are alive or (practically) dead makes for a big difference, since for the living superstitions, we have to consider our actions in relation to those people who posses that particular faith. We are thus active actors in their faith.

Our active part can be made obvious by an example. Consider a scenario where person A sings "I love god" for a person B. If person A sings it with good level of passion, that is, if he sings it well, then person B can believe that person A actually believes in what he says. Suppose person B is religious, whereby the declaration "I love god" of person A, supports the belief of person B. Yet another person declares that he believes in god, which confirms his belief in god. Thus, when I sing "I love god", I support a superstition that I believe is false. I am actually supporting peoples' delusions. I am cheating them. Swindle is in many other cases an offence punishable by law, but in this case it is only ethically wrong. The responsibility of avoiding this offence remains thus on the conscience of each one of us.

Personally, I would feel quite ok if I would/could just act and that'd be the end of it. However, I have become stuck with this feeling of leading people astray. Simultaneously, I strongly believe that we must follow our own values. Therefore I will no more participate in performances of sacral music.

This result is, from an artistic view point, very unfortunate. Renaissance and baroque music is beautiful! To abstain altogether would keep me from a lot of beautiful music. Still, in a literal sense, all consumption of music has an active role (buying tickets, CDs, scores etc.), which I have been unable to circumvent. Let me know if you have any good counter arguments!

Brights

There's one thing that's been quite a while on my mind and I've been collecting courage to put it here. Lots of my friends know it, but putting it on the web is, still, a different thing. No, I'm not gay, if that's what you think although it might be just as well, but it is socially a similar thing.

However strange as it seems, in our society it is perfectly acceptable to publicly declare faith in any religion, but to state the opposite, "I am an atheist" is a big no-no. It is even considered to be good manners to allow public declarations of faith, after all, it is politically correct, but no such considerations are reserved for the atheist. If you are not publicly stating your faith, then usually most people see no wrong in trying to, for example, persuade that person to come to the church. People are not supposed to talk about atheism since even the option, even the possibility that you do not believe in any supernatural things, undermines the very essence of religions: their faith.

Specifically, imagine the two following scenarios:

1. Person A is a Christian and person B a Muslim. Would you think it is politically correct for person A to ask person B to join the local church? Oh, no! Horrific error! Person B would slap person A on the face.
2. Person A is a again Christin and person B an atheist. Would you think it is politically correct for person A to ask person B to join the local church?

Objectively, the two situations are not at all different. Person A is asking person B to convert. However, in case 1 most people would see it as a terrible social blunder, while in case 2, I believe that most religious people cannot see any wrong in their actions. In case 2 I predict that many religious people can even see themselves as philanthropists, trying to relieve the atheist from his misery into the intellectually fuzzy world of religion.

So the situation is many ways similar to how homosexuals were perceived in the 60ies. It was socially acceptable to try to match homosexuals up with the opposite sex. Until the gay-movement. Today the social position of gays is incredibly much better than in the 60ies. Not perfect, but better. The brights movement tries to achieve the same for the atheists. Since the word atheist has for many people a negative sound to it, someone (check wikipedia) coined the word "brights" to mean people that are sufficiently enlightened (= bright) to abandon superstition. Similarly, those who still cling on to their superstitions, are called "supers". All nice and positive words, that is, trying really hard to be politically correct here.

So here it goes. I am a bright. I am an atheist. I will take it as an intellectual insult if you try to invite me to your church.

I will, in this context, not try to list the reasons why you should not be superstitious. There are many excellent books and speeches available on that already (check out Richard Dawkins, Dan Dennet, Susan Blackmore, etc.) and quoting them wrongly here would do no one no good. The purpose of this article is merely to bring more visibility to the prevalence of atheism and the term brights, as well as, to reach equality between people who have this world-view and those who publicly declare superstitions.



PS. I am fully conscious that I did not write anything original, anything that someone else wouldn't have said before. I just feel that it is important to spread the word, to make the message visible in as many places as possible.