Religion is the Prozac of the People

The God Antidepressant

God, how I envy people who have a strong belief in God. As someone who has been prone to depression for almost my entire life, I see how the belief in God alleviates depression for others. I wish I could take this antidepressant, too. I've tried, but I've never been able to stick with it.

Twelve-step programs, which address addictions that generally arise out of depression or other emotional disturbances, understand this with their belief in a "higher power" (though they throw in there, to paraphrase, 'in whatever form you may understand it') but ultimately they're talking about "God." What they're acknowledging, in not so many words, is a rehashing of what was said by Karl Marx, that "Religion is the opiate of the people." So, if you have to have an addiction, something to which you turn to make you feel better, it might as well be God, and not Vicodins, marijuana or beer.

I take Marx's statement in a slightly different direction: while he equated religion with an "opiate" which I take to mean something which gets you high thereby giving you a temporary escape, I suggest that these days, religiosity actually acts more like an antidepressant and cures the depression, giving the believer a permanent tool with which to feel reasonably content.

What blows me away is that for so many people it works. I see examples of it all the time: people who would be seriously depressed, even to the point of not functioning, if they did not have God to turn to. Life is seriously difficult for many people, and even more so for those for whom the "ordinary" problems we all have such as illness, divorce, bills to be paid, etc., are compounded by poverty, single parenthood, being a grandparent caring for young children, disabilities, incarceration, drug addiction: the list goes on from the most horrific on down to the petty frustrations of every day, such as the mail delivering something urgent a day late, job related stresses, etc.

If people couldn't rationalize their pain and console themselves with the belief that whatever is happening is part of God's plan for them, many would be hard pressed to face another day. At least two people I spend a lot of time with turn to God for help many times in a day. They easily explain away painful events by saying that if God wants them to endure this then they will, because their faith is such that they put their full belief in Him. Even if they can't explain the reason for something now, they are sure God will make the reason known to them eventually.

God, how I've envied this. How much easier and more comforting it must be to believe that no matter how horrific something is, it's happening for a reason. It seems virtually impossible (proven by how relatively few atheists there are!) to accept that all the suffering I endure is purely arbitrary, unexplainable, and, ultimately, in the service of nothing.

A specific example of this is the very human need for justice. How many times I've heard my religious friends express the belief that people get what they deserve, e.g., "Don't worry. God will take care of so and so [who did something evil], if not in this life then in the next." They are alleviated of having to cope with people doing evil to them or their loved ones and nothing will happen to them. And, in the reverse, people (like them?) who are especially good, will get theirs too. While they may not win the lottery, they'll be rewarded in some way for their goodness, again, if not in this life, then in the next.

The next installment of this blog will address how things might be if as many people as do take the God antidepressant didn't. Read more!

SEASONED WITH REASON - Speaking Up

Yesterday, I received an email from an acquaintance of mine. The forwarded message contained a link to a YouTube video which pieced together clips of a speech given in 2006 by a politician in which he argued that it was not a good idea to use the Bible as a basis for public policy in the United States. The reasons he offered were responses to specific, problematic verses in the Bible, and the producer of the video accused the politician of "making fun" of the books in which those verses were contained.

He clearly thinks using the Bible as a source for public policy is a swell idea and scolded the politician for not agreeing with him.

The video irritated me.

Normally, I don't respond to emails like this one. A few months ago, the same woman emailed me an image of Jesus Christ, stripped down, beaten and bloody, kneeling on a cross with a crown of thorns on his head, a woeful expression on his face. I found it disturbing, much more than I did when I was a Christian. I guess my former desensitization to depictions of mythological torture has worn off because I actually became a bit queasy in my stomach looking at that image she sent.

I didn't write her back. I knew there was little point. I typically refrain from discussing religion with people I don't know well, especially when I know them to be fundamental Christians with little respect for anyone else's point of view.

This time, though, I felt the need to respond. Carefully, I explained my point of view, that regardless of what the Bible says, it's a religious book, and therefore, according to our Constitution's First Amendment, it's illegal to use Biblical text for public policy.

I quoted to her, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Maybe I have a simple mind, uncluttered by linguistic subtleties others see, but I can't fathom how that sentence could be misconstrued. It could not be much clearer.

And I also suggested that the passages the politician discussed in his speech certainly were problematic--one was about how to keep slaves, another was about the way to stone a child that strays from the religion--and pointing out the inherent problems of those passages can't really be considered ridicule.

After I sent the message, I started to think of possible ramifications. This woman and I share friends, and we're part of a group that gets together once a month. All of the members have been outspoken about their faith. I am the only one who isn't Christian, and I have kept it to myself. I wonder, will she pass along my comments to the others? Will I be exposed to a whole room of cold shoulders next time we assemble? Will they decide to exclude me altogether?

Whether all of those minor worries come to fruition, or she dismisses my email with a shrug and moves on with her day, I'm glad I wrote it. When religious folks start spewing what can only be called nonsense, I struggle with frustration, sometimes outrage, and I don't always know how much to object. There are many occasions when I hear or read someone say, "This country was founded by Christians!" or "This country was founded on Christian principles!" Those are at the top of my list of peeves, lately, mostly because they are so blatantly, obviously false.

Yet I usually keep silent.

This time, I simply couldn't, and I hope that my email inspires my acquaintance to see a different side of things. Separation of church and state is a crucial issue, and there will be far-reaching consequences if we lose it. In this case, whatever it may cost me, I had to attempt to be the voice of reason. Read more!

First Annual Parenting Beyond Belief Column Competition

by Dale McGowan, author/editor, Parenting Beyond Belief
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In addition to my other writing, I edit the Humanist Parenting site for the Institute for Humanist Studies. One of my IHS duties is to solicit and/or write a monthly parenting column for Humanist Network News, which also then appears on The Meming of Life.

We've featured the writing of such freethinkers as Ed Buckner, Noell Hyman, Marilyn McCourt, Stu Tanquist, and Roberta Nelson, as well as columns of my own.

Now it's your turn to become the quiet kind of famous. We are now accepting submissions for the First Annual Parenting Beyond Belief Column Competition. Your entry should tackle a subtopic within nonreligious parenting (as opposed to the topic on the whole) or a personal story from your own experience.

The top entries will:

-- appear in Humanist Network News (subscription over 5,000);
-- be posted on the Humanist Parenting website; and
-- appear in the Meming of Life (which currently averages 2500-3000 visitors per day).

Submissions should be attached in a Word document 600-800 words in length PLUS a bio of no more than 75 words, and emailed to column [at] parentingbeyondbelief dot com with the word COLUMN in the subject line.

[No Microsoft Word? Paste into email.]

Deadline for submissions is September 30, 2008. Read more!

Sobriety Without "God"

Alcoholism is a terrible scourge. Alcoholics Anonymous, which was founded in 1935, has been of tremendous benefit in helping people recover from alcoholism.

Unfortunately, AA does a lousy job of meeting the needs of atheists. It provides a very God-centered program of recovery.

If you go to enough meetings, you'll spot a few people who never talk about God, and even a very few who identify openly as atheists. Atheism is certainly tolerated, but it's not encouraged.

The real problem is not the social and philosophical discomfort of being an atheist in AA, which turns out to be relatively minor. The real problem is that when drunks come through the door of an AA meeting and hear all the "God talk," a certain number of them bolt out the door again, never to return.

Some of those people grit their teeth and get sober without AA. But some of them don't. It's a statistical certainty that some of them get drunk again, get behind the wheel of a car, and kill people. It would be naïve to say that AA has no complicity in those needless deaths.

Nothing whatever can be done to change this. AA was founded by a conservative Evangelical Christian who firmly believed not only that God had gotten him sober, but also that the only way to recover from alcoholism was by "finding God." To a large majority of AA members, the idea of recovery without God is simply inconceivable. AA is completely non-denominational, but theism is the lifeblood of the program.

Atheists who want to get sober do have options, including Rational Recovery (RR) and the Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS). They're smaller and harder to find than AA, but they do provide invaluable alternatives for atheists.

Unfortunately, the legal system in the U.S. typically sends drunk drivers to AA. The courts are actively supporting an avowedly theistic organization, and in effect steering people toward church attendance.

My own belief is that one of the essentials of recovery is a strong support group of sober people. AA has a solid presence in almost every town in the U.S., which makes it a great place to go when you're seeking support. But you do have to be thick-skinned enough to put up with a certain amount of "God talk." Read more!

LIVING IN THE VOID: No Atheists in Foxholes

We've all heard it many times--"There are no atheists in foxholes." Not surprising, this remark is attributed to a WWII Chaplin. I would be praying too in a foxhole. "God help me!" comes to mind. However, this doesn't mean that I believe in God, even at the time of supplication. It's more the child crying out to the parent to save them. And this is the essence of the individual/God relationship. Why do humans believe in God? Oxford researchers have received a 1.9 million pound grant for the development of the study of the cognitive science of religion. This grant will promote scientific ideas about the meaning of religion and its origin in the human mind.

Other research studies have already located a part of the brain that is the "religious-seeking part," which suggests that natural selection may have hardwired us for faith. And how natural then, for humans to create God in their image, not vice versa. But not every one can take that leap of faith and blindly believe in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence that says otherwise. Religion is like a theatrical play on a stage--the believer doesn't pull back the curtain to reveal the props backstage. Instead, they prefer, or need, to keep the curtain, their belief drawn. Read more!

Finks ahoy!

by Dale McGowan, author/editor, Parenting Beyond Belief
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There's plenty of nonsensical meme creation on the Internet (just so you know). One of my least favorites is what I'll call the Fictional Narrative Cartoon (FNC, or 'Fink'). Follow these steps to write a Fink of your own:


1. Select a life stance you have never held or attempted to understand.

2. Achieve a Vulcan mind-meld with people of that perspective. When that fails, simply pick a set of unflattering assumptions off the top of your head about what the world "must" look like from that perspective.

3. Weave a fictional monologue or dialogue to describe the world through the eyes of this worldview. Include acts of puppy smooshing for maximum effect.

4. Post!


I've seen atheists do this to religious folks and vice versa. It tends not to be a true Fink if the person once shared the worldview -- the atheist who was once a genuine theist, or the theist who was once a genuine atheist. In those cases, the risk of nonfiction sneaking in is too great. The true Fictional Narrative Cartoon must spring entirely from willful ignorance.

My Google alert for "atheist parents" brings Christian FNCs about nonreligious parenting into my inbox once in a while. The gods of cyber-serendipity smiled on me yesterday, delivering a Fink about an atheist dad talking to his child about death just days after I had posted a nonfiction narrative of the same thing.

The blogger, a Christian father of seven, begins by describing his approach as a Christian parent talking to his children about death:

Have you ever had a surprise party thrown in your honor? You walk through the door and the lights come on and the horns blow, close friends cheer as ribbons and balloons are thrown into the air? Have you ever watched as an athlete’s name is announced and he runs from the dressing room tunnel and onto the field as 60 or 70 thousand people cheer his arrival?...When my kids ask about death, these are some of the analogies that I use...

What a difference it must be for atheist parents, especially for those who want to be honest with their child.

He's right -- it is certainly different. And yes, it's a much greater challenge than contemplating death as a stadium full of angels doing the Wave. Unfortunately he doesn't stop with what he knows, but begins to construct a Fink:

“Dad [says the child of the atheist], what happens when we die?”

“Well, nothing really. We come from nothing and we go to nothing. Either your mom and I or someone else will put you into the ground and cover you with dirt and the person that we knew as YOU will just totally and completely cease to exist.”

“But how can I just come to an end? What if I only live until I’m five years old? I won’t get to do anything important.”

“My dear boy. Five years or five hundred years, it doesn’t really matter because none of it counts, not ultimately anyhow. Humans are part of a dying species in a dying universe. You’re an accident little buddy. An absolute accident to which we gave a name. Don’t get me wrong. We love you, and perhaps some day you can even manipulate some other people to love you too. But apart from that you’re pretty much on your own.”

“But what are we here for? Is there any meaning or purpose to all this?”

“Use your brain son. How can there be meaning and purpose to something that’s an accident?...Reality is, you come from nothing and you’re headed to nothing, just emptiness, a void. That’s all there is son. That’s not a bad thing son. It just is. The fact is, our life has no meaning, no context and absolutely no purpose save the purpose that you pretend to give it. Pretty cool huh?”

“But daddy, shouldn’t I at least try to be a good person?”

“Oh my precious little munchkin. Good and bad are just subjective words that some people use to describe things that they like or don’t like...All I know is, live good, live bad, live for yourself, live for others, none of it matters because the end of the good and the end of the bad, the end of people, pigs and insects is exactly the same, we rot away and become a different form of matter. Now, why don’t you run along. I’ve got some useless and pointless things to do.”

“But dad, that’s absurd! How do you expect me to be happy if life has no meaning, context or purpose” If that’s the way things are, why did you make me in the fist place?”

“Well, sweetpea, now you’re starting to ask what's beginning to feel like a lot of questions. First of all, I couldn’t not make you. My genes compel me to reproduce. I squirt my semen here and there and everywhere..."

You get the idea.

I was once at a family gathering where the subject turned to gays and lesbians. I chimed in that homosexual sex is disgusting. They all nodded, mildly surprised.

"You know something else that's disgusting?" I added. "Heterosexual sex." Reduce the sexual act to the physical slapping of flesh and it doesn't matter who is involved -- it's disgusting. Gay rights opponents recoil at the idea of gay sex because they strip it of the emotional component that transforms their own rutting into something entirely else.

Reducing a nonreligious parent's description of death to the slapping of dirt on a coffin achieves the same brand of reductionist nonsense. The Fink starts and stays with sterile facts, never granting the atheist parent the human faculties of compassion or love except as a laugh line. I do think we die, for real, and that love and understanding can help us live with this difficult fact quite beautifully and well -- even without invoking balloons and confetti.

The best thing about the growing nonreligious parenting movement is that we no longer need be content with Finks about nonreligious parenting. We're living the nonfiction versions. Which points to the most important difference between this blogger's take on the atheist parent-child conversation and mine.

Mine actually happened.

[Link to the fictional conversation]
[Link to the nonfictional conversation] Read more!

Where all roads lead (2)

by Dale McGowan, author/editor, Parenting Beyond Belief

[Back to Part 1]

We’d had the conversation before, but this time a new dawning crossed Laney’s face.

“Sweetie, what is it?” I asked.

She began the deep, aching cry that accompanies her saddest realizations, and sobbed:

“I don’t want to die.”

Now let’s freeze this tableau for a moment and make a few things clear. The first is that I love this child so much I would throw myself under Pat Robertson for her. She's one of just four people whose health and happiness are vital to my own. When she is sad, I want to make her happy. It’s one of the simplest equations in my life.

I say such obvious things because it is often assumed that nonreligious parents respond to their children’s fears of death by saying, in essence, Suck it up, worm food. When one early reviewer of Parenting Beyond Belief implied that that was the book’s approach, I tore him a new one. I am convinced that there are real comforts to be found in a naturalistic view of death, that our mortality lends a new preciousness to life, and that it is not just more truthful but more humane and more loving to introduce the concept of a life that truly ends than it is to proffer an immortality their inquiring minds will have to painfully discard later.

But all my smiling confidence threatens to dissolve under the tears of my children.

“I know, punkin,” I said, cradling her head as she convulsed with sobs. “Nobody wants to die. I sure don't. But you know what? First you get to live for a hundred years. Think about that. You’ll be older than Great-Grandma Huey!”

It's a cheap opening gambit. It worked the last time we had this conversation, when Laney was four.

Not this time.

“But it will come,” she said, hiffing. “Even if it’s a long way away, it will come, and I don’t want it to! I want to stay alive!”

I took a deep breath. “I know,” I said. “It’s such a strange thing to think about. Sometimes it scares me. But you know what? Whenever I’m scared of dying, I remember that being scared means I’m not understanding it right.”

She stopped hiffing and looked at me. “I don’t get it.”

“Well what do you think being dead is like?”

She thought for a minute. “It’s like you’re all still and it’s dark forever.”

A chill went down my spine. She had described my childhood image of death precisely. When I pictured myself dead, it was me-floating-in-darkness-forever. It’s the most awful thing I can imagine. Hell would be better than an eternal, mute, insensate limbo.

“That’s how I think of it sometimes too. And that frrrrreaks me out! But that’s not how it is.”

“But how do you know?” she asked pleadingly. "How do you know what it's like?"

“Because I’ve already been there.”

“What! Haha! No you haven’t!”

“Yes I have, and so have you.”

“What? No I haven’t.”

“After I die, I will be nowhere. I won’t be floating in darkness. There will be no Dale McGowan, right?”

“And millions of worms will eat your body!!” chirped Erin, unhelpfully.

“…”

“Well they will.”

“Uh…yeah. But I won’t care because I won’t be there.”

“Still.”

I turned back to her sister. “So a hundred years from now, I won’t be anywhere, right?”

“I guess so.”

“Okay. Now where was I a hundred years ago? Before I was born?”

“Where were you? You weren’t anywhere.”

“And was I afraid?”

“No, becau…OMIGOSH, IT’S THE SAME!!”

It hit both girls at the same instant. They bolted upright with looks of astonishment.

“Yep, it’s exactly the same. There’s no difference at all between not existing before you were born and not existing after you die. None. So if you weren’t scared then, you shouldn’t be scared about going back to it. I still get scared sometimes because I forget that. But then I try to really understand it again and I feel much better.”

The crisis was over, but they clearly wanted to keep going.


"You know something else I like to think about?" I asked. "I think about the egg that came down into my mommy's tummy right before me. And the one before that, and before that. All of those people never even got a chance to exist, and they never will. There are billions and trillions of people who never even got a chance to be here. But I made it! I get a chance to be alive and playing and laughing and dancing and burping and farting..."

(Brief intermission for laughter and sound effects.)

"I could have just not existed forever -- but instead, I get to be alive for a hundred years! And you too! Woohoo! We made it!"

"Omigosh," Laney said, staring into space. "I'm like...the luckiest thing ever."

"Exactly. So sometimes when I start to complain because it doesn't last forever, I picture all those people who never existed telling me, 'Hey, wait a minute. At least you got a chance. Don't be piggy.'"

More sound effects, more laughter.

Coming to grips with mortality is a lifelong process, one that ebbs and flows for me, as I know it will for them. Delaney was perfectly fine going to sleep that night, and fine the next morning, and the morning after that. It will catch up to her again, but every time it comes it will be more familiar and potentially less frightening. We'll talk about the other consolations -- that every bit of you came from the stars and will return to the stars, the peaceful symphony of endorphins that usually accompanies dying, and so on. If all goes well, her head start may help her come up with new consolations to share with the rest of us.

In his brilliant classic The Tangled Wing, Emory psychologist Melvin Konner notes that “from age three to five [children] consider [death] reversible, resembling a journey or sleep. After six they view it as a fact of life but a very remote one” (p. 369). Though rates of development vary, Konner places the first true grasp of the finality and universality of death around age ten—a realization that includes the first dawning deep awareness that it applies to them as well. So grappling with the concept early, before we are paralyzed by the fear of it, can go a long way toward fending off that fear in the long run.

Laney, for better and worse, is ahead of the curve. All I can do is keep reminding her, and myself, that knowing and understanding something helps tame our fears. It may not completely feed the bulldog -- the fear is too deeply ingrained to ever go completely -- but it’s a bigger, better Milk-Bone than anything else we have.
____________________

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