The Martian has a post on his blog called Religion: A Force For Good?. There, he questions the usual defense of “oh, religion (or Christianity, or…) would be a good thing if people actually followed its tenets, instead of using it as a cover to gain money or power”. He says that, instead, the flaw is with religion (or, in this case, Christianity and Islam) itself.
I completely agree with him - the Abrahamic religions, at least, are creeds of death - and the problem is not that people don’t follow them perfectly, but that they follow them to the logical conclusion. Please go there, and read it in full - it’s long, but worth it. But don’t forget to come back here. 
Oddly, I had already read something similar, but about Communism, and collectivism in general, by Ayn Rand. According to her, when Communism in the Soviet Union make life there a living hell, the leaders would always say that the ones before weren’t really Communists, but “were out for themselves”, or that the “bourgeois” mentality of the people was preventing “true Communism”, and that, once people really adopted the ideals of Communism, life would become paradise.
And, of course, the next leaders would say that these ones weren’t really true Communists, but now, things would be different, after just a little more sacrifice, more “brotherly cooperation”, and less individualistic “selfish” ideas.
Rand argued that the problem wasn’t that people weren’t “Communist enough”, but that they were were following Communism to the logical conclusion - the “devaluation” of the individual, the irriationality of making people believe that, by wanting to improve their lives, they were “selfish monsters”, the equating of suffering and sacrifice with virtue, the idea that no individual was really important, only the “collective”…
And, again, I have to agree. Communism is a creed of death, just like any philosophy or belief that says that my life is not my own, but belongs to “God” or “the people”, or “the state”.
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Thought-provoking post!
People always have and no doubt always will aim at, or at least point toward some ideal that is most probably unattainable and is perhaps ill-conceived and unworkable in the real (imperfect) world; an ideal that looks or sounds desirable at some particular point in time.
Thanks to that quirk of our nature, tremendous successes have been achieved, miserable failures have been endured, lives have been started and more than one life has been ended — that’s the human condition.
It’s like I’ve said in the past: religion can be the oxygen to your flame, when you feel you’re inside a cave.
But only as long as it doesn’t involve “ownership” of any kind of any parts, be they physical, mental or spiritual. Of course I think I understand how “my life belongs to (insert deity name here), I must do the best I can do” works, but that would be doing it fearful… and living in fear, well, probably isn’t nice.
Sure, “help and love your fellow humans”, “forgiving is good” and stuff like that might make someone “a bettter person”, but to what extent?
Couple of problems that I see here:
Firstly, this line of reasoning insists that there is such a thing as an authentic Christianity that exists as a pure abstraction. For a Christian, this pure abstract teaching is good and moral because it came from God through Moses or Jesus and their sect embodies it perfectly. But if you are atheist, why would you believe that there is such a thing as a “real” Christianity at all? We have very little evidence for a historical Jesus or Moses outside of scripture, and even a quick look at the history of the Church will show you that a 21st century Christian and a 2nd century Christian are world’s apart in terms of basic beliefs and dogma. Unless you know absolutely nothing about church history, an atheist must view religion as a constantly shifting set of beliefs that changes in response to contemporary life conditions. JesusNeverExisted.com is a great site that outlines all the various influences that created what we now call Christianity today.
As an example, most ordinary people would agree that Abrahamic religions have a concept of Satan and Hell vs. God and Heaven, and that it is a core concept that is essential to these religions. But there is evidence that Satan was borrowed from the Babylonian religion during the Jews captivity in Babylon, along with the book of Job, the creation story and Messianic prophecy. So what does that say about what “real” Christianity is, if Satan wasn’t part of the Jewish belief system from the beginning?
Secondly, this is pretty clearly an attempt for atheists to have it both ways. On one hand, you claim that believing in God without evidence is irrational and illogical, and that atheism is rational. But then you turn around and claim the complete opposite, that following a religion is rational and logical, but it is evil.
Thirdly, I agree with your criticism of Communist rationalizing of its failures, but note that libertarians suffer from the same problem. They have a great deal of faith in a semi-mystical invisible hand that corrects all imbalances and distributes all resources fairly. If it is shown that the market fails to do this, then its always because we have failed to implement the system perfectly. This is a problem with all ideologies.
Fourthly, your definition of a “creed of death” is just a bit broad, and I think it would be useful to educate yourself about the role of oxytocin in the brain. Oxytocin is the so-called ‘love drug’, which causes humans to feel a sense of community and connection with each other, and behave in self-sacrificial ways. Women typically have higher levels of oxytocin in their brains than men, causing them to be more oriented around sharing, altruism and connection with people. I’ve heard Libertarianism described (by a libertarian) as a belief that people who can’t take care of themselves should be allowed to die, and from this accurate description, its easy to see why men and women with higher levels of oxytocin would find this philosophy abhorrent. Therefore, radical individualism is a belief that the natural operations of the brain as influenced by oxytocin, which the human species has apparently evolved as a positive adaptation, are somehow evil and should be avoided at all costs. Its true that radical collectivism elevates oxytocin-related operations to a transcendent moral Good, but at least this doesn’t contradict several million years of human evolution.
Mike: let’s see…
Firstly, sure, there isn’t a “real”, single Christian faith, it has taken many things from other creeds. But there’s an “average”, these days, a common ground between versions of Christianity.
Second, I guess you misunderstood me. I didn’t say that following a religion is rational or logical. I just said that the problem with religion was that it was eventually followed to its logical conclusion. If you preach that God made Man, then eventually someone will believe that Man is nothing without God. If you believe that Man is sinful by nature, it will eventually lead to an Inquisition, witch-burning and so on - after all, they’re filthy sinners anyway. If you say that life in this world doesn’t matter, that the “real thing” is after you die, then suicide bombers are just a step away. If you preach that sacrifice for your brothers is virtuous, then eventually some group will demand that you sacrifice everything you have for their sake.
I’ll answer 3 and 4 in another comment…
3- libertarians don’t believe (individuals who call themselves “libertarians” may do so, but Libertarianism, or Objectivism, don’t) in a “fair distribution of resources”. That’s not even a valid concept, unless you’re a collectivist. A Libertarian / Objectivist / individualist (I prefer the latter term) believes in property rights - what’s mine is mine, what’s yours is yours, and any transfer of property should be voluntary for both sides.
What does “fair distribution of resources” mean? Who judges what is “fair”? Someone who believes that everyone should live at basically the same level? And who will, then, advocate taking (either by force or by guilt) from the ones who have more to those who have less? That’s collectivism to me. Individualism means that people have a right to improve their own lives, and that they have earned what they have produced.
Yes, collectivists will call that a “dog eat dog” world, where the “little guys” don’t have a chance. They will call for those who “can” to support - forced to, if necessary - the ones who “can’t”. They will say that it’s “unfair” that a productive genius has more than the village idiot. They would like to reduce the entire world to their own level of mediocrity.
To me, that is what “pure evil” means.
As to 4, you, and possibly even your libertarian acquaintance, are making a common mistake about individualism. Individualism means you don’t have a DUTY to sacrifice yourself for others. It doesn’t mean you CAN’T, or even SHOULDN’T, help others.
A true individualist may well be the kindest person around.
1. One key point is that religious fundamentalism is a response to the Enlightenment. If you think that Christianity is what is written in the Bible, you are missing the vast majority of what motivates its followers. For both Protestant Christians and Islamic fundamentalists, it is secular humanism.
2. You are arguing that Christianity consists of a fixed set of premises A, B and C, which when followed to their logical conclusion, produce conclusions X and Y. I say that the premises are constantly shifting around, and furthermore, most religious people aren’t logical anyway. They arrive at conclusion X or Y first, then make up premises A, B and C that seem to prove it but aren’t really logical. Atheists are sometimes tempted to try to make a strong proof that religion is always evil, but this is just misguided and a response to frustration rather than a serious observation.
3. Libertarians believe in justice. For them, a fair distribution of resources means that people who worked for something get to keep it, and they aren’t given to people who don’t deserve them. They take it by faith that the market produces this result, but no experiment can be devised to show that this is always true, or even often true, so there is no evidence. Thus, libertarians have faith that their ideology works in practice, possibly because it is emotionally satisfying to them. One thing you will notice about Ayn Rand, her novels are extremely emotional. Her philosophy “feels” good, in much the same way that communitarianism feels good to someone with an excess of oxytocin.
4. I’m aware of the implications of individualism as a philosophy. As a practical matter, many self-professed individuals simply don’t care that much about other people, and don’t want to feel bad about it, even when caring about other people would be in their individual self-interest.
The NY Times recently published this article that provides some evidence for the neurological basis for empathy:
Mike: 1 and 2: I’ve read the Bible. Remember, I was a Christian for 26 years (I’m 31). I’d say that the Bible itself (more in some parts than the others, after all there were many different authors, from different times) calls for fundamentalism, and even for “killing unbelievers”. If most Christians aren’t fanatics, it’s because they ignore a lot of the Bible - in other words, they “pick and choose”, they accept the “loving God” parts, but skip most of the Old Testament, and even some parts of the New.
But I’ll write about that in a future post.
3: they don’t “take it by faith that the market produces this result”. That’s not the point. A proper individualist won’t even be concerned with “the market”. He will believe, sure, that things get better for *everyone*, eventually, in a capitalistic, individualistic society, but that’s NOT even his goal. That that happens is a *consequence*, not a cause.
4: I believe you. But, since most people make the “invididualist = someone who doesn’t give a damn about anyone and would let a child die rather than lift a finger to help” mistake, then it’s natural that people who don’t give a damn about anyone and would let a child die rather than lift a finger to help call themselves “individualists”. When, actually, they’re simply jerks.