Of Lies, Liars and Atheism

Ruv Draba · Apr 28, 2008

Atheists have many different viewpoints, but one viewpoint that seems almost universal is a concern about the truth and a visceral abhorrence for religious deceit. Certainly, when atheists have gone up against religious deceit they’ve often done so passionately, and sometimes at significant personal cost.

But that’s interesting from a moral and ethical perspective: what obligations do atheists feel they have to the truth?

What follows is personal perspective on this question: the question of lies, liars and atheism.

Let me start with a blunt observation: religions are often caught in lies, and many atheists find religious lying deeply offensive. I've included a few examples so you'll know what I mean.

Religions often lie in their claims to have insider knowledge on absolute truths - both physical and metaphysical. Yet history shows that the physical truths often move away from their doctrine, and that religions will frequently rework their metaphysical truths to reach a larger audience.

They often lie in how much they claim that their deities will care for us. History shows us that a kid with two stable, loving parents, a solid education and modern medicine but no religion does far better on average than an orphan with religion but no education and no medicine. So inasmuch as deities are meant to be a 'hidden hand' helping people, they're clearly not helping as much as good social services.

Religions often lie when they say that you can apprehend truth through faith alone. They often get caught out when history shows that they've been changing their own stories to fit newly discovered facts.

Religions often like to scare-monger and say that a materialistic world is predisposed toward decadence and moral decay; that religious guidance is necessary for humans to behave civilly. Yet history shows us that as social services improve, we become better behaved to one another. On the other hand, when social services are poor, people behave worse to one another - regardless of how strong the local religion is.

These examples are for illustration and lest this be seen as religion-bashing, I should acknowledge something important: many critical social services are supplied by religious institutions, and have been for hundreds - even thousands - of years. Indeed, many modern social services (like hospitals, emergency food, shelter, orphanages) were invented by religious institutions. That's not at issue for this discussion - what's at issue are the deceitful (or heavily misguided) claims that accompany the often good works.

It seems to me that religions lie for the same reason that politicians do - because they need power to sustain their institutions and vested interests. When they lie, they do so glibly, egregiously, publicly and shamelessly and it offends many atheists. The porkies they tell can be breathtaking in their magnitude and brazenness (if you want to lie well, lie big).

That's all reprehensible and regrettable, and atheists may well tut and sneer, but here's the thing:

I'm not persuaded that atheists lie any less.

Are atheists more prompt to admit wrongs? To acknowledge mistakes? Are they less likely to be convicted for criminality? I haven’t seen any stats on this, but my gut says probably not. Individual examples aren’t always indicative, but the most scrupulously honest people I know are almost all theists. Whatever’s happening at the institutional level, at the personal level I’d rate honesty among devout theists to be higher than that among the staunch atheists.

At a national level there aren't many countries where atheism is legislated - the only ones I can think of are the former USSR, communist China and North Korea. These are not countries renowned for their scrupulous honesty – though that may have more to do with political regime than anything to do with their faith. :tongue

But this leads me to wonder: why are atheists so sanctimonious about religious lies, yet so sanguine about their own? Why are they so vocal about big sectarian lies, but not big secular lies?

Most of the time I think that religious lies are largely immaterial – even vaguely benevolent. Saying that ‘prayer will save your husband’s life’ at least may give the family comfort and probably won’t hurt the husband. (The last stats I saw suggested that prayer is linked to a slightly reduced recovery rate from illness – whether that’s because all the praying worries the patient, or the more serious patients get more prayers I don’t know). On the other hand, many secular lies – the big, cultural lies we tell ourselves – often do a lot of harm. So why aren’t atheists as passionate about these lies?

All cultures lie to themselves - that's what myths are. These lies can do some social good. They can make us kinder, more tolerant, more civil, braver, more generous, more honest and more decent to one another. Our hero myths are lies of this sort. Many religious myths are of this sort too.

But our cultural lies can also divide, harm and thieve social good from one group to benefit another. The lies underpinning racism, sexism and nationalism are of this sort.

So if atheists dislike religious lying, is it hypocritical for them to tolerate these other forms of lying? What are a 'good' atheist's obligations toward the truth?

[In closing, I should say that I find it a bit ironic to post this question as a fiction-writer. After all, it’s an avocation that capitalises on and exploits lies. Even more than that, as writers we have a strong personal stake in our lies getting more airplay than other folks' lies (that’s what successful publication means, right?) And gee, that sounds similar to the way some religions work, doesn’t it?

]

veinglory · Apr 28, 2008

I am afraid I am not with you on the assumption. I don't care about religious deceit. I am not the one being deceived, I am uninvolved and uninterested.

Ruv Draba · Apr 28, 2008

veinglory said:
I am afraid I am not with you on the assumption. I don't care about religious deceit. I am not the one being deceived, I am uninvolved and uninterested.

Fair enough, Vein, but does that include the extent to which religion may shape social policy?

In many countries it doesn't - or doesn't much. In other countries it does.

For instance, in some countries religious education is compulsory. In some regions, the only medicine available is from a religious hospital. In some places, religious institutions may control access to contraception, and may determine whom you can marry, whether you can remarry and can in fact determine that you must marry. (It strikes me that giving a religious institution monopoly control on critical social services is as clever as putting McDonald's in charge of food or a drug company in charge of hospitals.)

It's often the case - and in fact has traditionally been the case - that religious doctrine has shaped social policy and legislation. The idea of societies with almost no religious guidance on policy and legislation is only fairly new - and indeed it's hard to see 'pure' examples of this other than in a couple of extremist socialist countries I mentioned (and even there it's arguable - how do the deceits of a strong ideology differ from the deceits of religion, say?)

Religion often overrules custom (which can vary from family to family, region to region) and stamps standards on behaviour - making them mandatory. Frequently, its arguments for doing so are deceitful, and its reasons for doing so (I suspect) are largely political. Control medicine, sex, marriage, child-care and education and you have strong controls on society. I find it interesting to note that even in countries that try to separate church and state (or claim to have), religion still tries very hard to shape social policies. Freedom to express one's faith is one thing - but that's not what religious lobby groups argue for. They want more social controls.

Is it that the idea of religious deceit never could affect you, or simply that it doesn't in your present circumstance?

veinglory · Apr 28, 2008

It's not that it isn't a factor. But I doubt I care about it as much as, for example, a person from another religion.

Pup · Apr 28, 2008

Ruv Draba said:
On the other hand, many secular lies – the big, cultural lies we tell ourselves – often do a lot of harm. So why aren’t atheists as passionate about these lies?

One problem is that you're defining a group by one attribute--what they don't believe in--and then wondering why they're not alike in other attributes.

There's no qualification to be an atheist, other than not believing in the existence of god(s). So of course atheists are reasonably united on that front. Everything else, not so much.

I expect you'd also find that not everyone defines "lies" the same way, and therefore not everyone who's against lying, in principal, is also against the things that you personally define as lies.

For example, I doubt you'd get a Republican atheist and a Democrat atheist to agree which politicians are "lying" about what economic policy is best for the country, yet both of them might feel equally strongly that the "truth" about economic policy should be told.

Ruv Draba · Apr 28, 2008

At core, I think my post's about atheistic conscience and how it works. Obviously, such consciences will work in different ways, just as consciences in a given religion can. I asked the question in general terms but personal responses make sense too, and I suppose that it's the personal responses abd social observations that I'm most looking for.

Let me kick off with some personal stuff then.

I'm an atheist because truth's important to me. It's more important than feeling comfortable, being liked, or feeling in control. I have no opinion about the possible existence of invisible intangible entities, but my physical observations of the world tell me that all the big goods and ills in human affairs are attributable to human behaviour and human belief. Natural events seem to follow their own rules, and we've seen over 400 years that the rules are learnable. Moreover, as time goes by we can see the claims of miracles and other theistic interventions getting smaller and smaller; the bigger claims being increasingly debunked. Religious icons used to heal throngs of people; now they just leak canola oil.

Superstition is finding fewer cracks to hide in. In the last four hundred years, it has been losing round after round against intelligent, evidence-based enquiry. I am happy for such enquiry to demonstrate the existence of such entities, or their part in human affairs - but most theologists these days don't even claim that this is possible. They're retreating to moral and sociological arguments for their religion because the physical arguments just don't cut it any more. (And the moral and sociological arguments seem to have some merit, but they're also shaky in places too.)

Even less than intangible entities am I persuaded that there's just one such entity and just one plan, or that humanity must figure at the centre of it. Nature's history is written in the bones of our world, and that history is clearly not humanocentric. Our myths of humanocentric 'purpose' don't stand up to evidence of pre-human extinctions, geological epochs and so on. Historically too, every culture seems to feel that they have a grand destiny; and history is littered with the bones of dead cultures that didn't fulfill all their dreams.

On a species basis, I think we now have more extinct species than living ones and if that doesn't scare the bejazus out of us, it should. If species survival is important to us, then it seems more sensible to argue for intelligent adaptation than to hope that invisible and apparently impotent entities are going to bail us out.

In short, for humanitarian and species survival reasons, I think that truth is more important than feeling comfortable, being liked or feeling in control. Truth is a precursor to compassion, and a prerequisite to intelligent adaptation; superstition is an enemy of both.

But here's my dilemma: lies are important too. Truth doesn't create culture; myth does. Our carefully-crafted lies give us cohesive values, encourage us to pull together, to sacrifice more than we normally would, entice us to aspire to things we normally wouldn't even consider possible - and to sometimes succeed.

But the moment that you accept myth, you also accept superstition and social manipulation. It's not just religions that use myth to manipulate people - all the populist ideologies do (and this picks up on your Democrat vs Republican point, Pup).

It seems to me that if as an atheist you take a stand against religion on grounds of truth (and that's almost a definition of atheism in itself) then you've started on something of a journey. If you'll stand for truth against superstition, how can you stop there? Surely you have to do the same against the deceits of non-religious ideologies too - or else tell yourself why not.

But from my experiences to date, I don't believe that atheists are very good repositories of social conscience. Other than a few notables, atheists seem to have narrow shoulders, small hearts and a lot of self-interest. Most of the really impressive folk I know of or have met are theistic folk. However ignorant of physics and bizarre their metaphysics, they seem to get a lot of very good stuff done.

But I would love to have that observation proven wrong. I'd love to hear that there's an emerging cadre of high conscience, high commitment, high courage atheists doing more than just chucking rocks at superstition. A forum entitled NT Spiritual Writing seems like a good place to have that discussion.

Dommo · Apr 28, 2008

I do agree with you Ruv.

I think a big part of the problem at some level is that Atheists in general are as divergent philosophically as religions are numerous.

For example, I'm an agnostic atheist, however my stickling for falsifiability irritates a lot of atheists. My whole reasoning, is that as long as something isn't falsifiable it does warrant consideration, however unlikely such a thing is. To discount something without proof, or to believe something incorrect without it being falsified is called faith, and I think that's the slippery slope that too many secularists like ourselves are falling into by not taking an agnostic approach.

To say with absolution that "----" is false or untrue, you need to PROVE it. However, proving truth is far more difficult, and pretty much impossible outside of mathematics. What can be done is to say that something is highly unlikely(even infinitesimally unlikely). My whole point, is that some atheists are turning into the very thing they're trying to oppose, which is a belief system.

What atheists need to adopt is a standard of logic, that focuses on "likelihoods" as opposed to absolute truths. Rather than saying religion "----" is wrong, or untrue, it'd be more realistic given the falsifiability problems to say that the likelihood of "----" being true is extremely remote given current scientific evidence.

I deal with situations like this a lot in my engineering work, since everything we do is based on risk. I can design something that based on current scientific theory and understanding should last for say five years, however there is always the possibility the object could break on the first use. Even if every single known bit of data states that a steel I-beam can support 5000 lbs, there is always the slim, but very real possibility of it not meeting that standard.

Hell, if you get to the atomic scales, then predicting anything with "exactness" becomes impossible. But, that's my point. Nothing in nature, or in typical reality can ever be expressed as an absolute truth(math being the one exception). Accepting that our knowledge will almost always be limited in someway, is the key to undermining organized religions(as they've already constrained themselves to a fixed belief and understanding). However, when secularists like us try to claim that we "know" we are right, we damage our very ideals and start to form dogma much like current religions.

The sooner people can let go of the idea of "truth" the better off we'll be, as truth is always relative. I can say with 99% certainty something is true, but I can't say with absolute certainty something is true. So I'll end with this. I think I'm correct here, in what I'm saying, however I do accept the very real possibility that I could be wrong.

scottVee · Apr 29, 2008

I agree with the last post about absolutes. To a degree.

Something in the initial post suggests that atheists have some different level or type morality. Don't entwine morality with religion. Religion has tried to usurp morality, but only as another tool to control the masses. I would love to live in a world where people are always honest (whatever their background), but that's just another unattainable absolute.

I think the initial post hit an important and rarely mentioned point by saying that religious lies are similar to political lies -- done to protect and increase the power of large establishments. I have no problem with the personal beliefs of individuals; each of us is bound to get some things right and some things wrong and still cope with the world. But religion plays some mean domination games, too, getting parents to give cop-out answers to children long before they can reason for themselves (even giving them a straw man like Santa Claus they can later not believe in!) and then later in life trying to forcibly pull people into the herds and manipulate the curriculum in schools. There's a LOT there to dislike, and none of it has to do with lies as such. Or even the details of what the religion tries to say. Just the sheer need to dominate.

We're capable of such great levels of thought, and to me it's just an incredible letdown to see people "believe" in things (whether it's ghosts or gods) for the slightest reasons, just to feel like they have the answers, or because some charismatic person told them its true. I realize that it's a little scary living in a world where we don't have all the answers, but we do have quite a few of them. But although absolute truth (back to the last post) is not attainable, there's still a huge difference between a practical piece of knowledge (whether it's quantum mechanics or how to create a blog) and hocus-pocus. I enjoy fiction and mythology ... but it freaks me out when people don't know what's real and what's fiction, are unable to reason things out, and feel threatened whenever a new idea comes their way. Yes, it's part political and mass media and corporate brainwashing, but there's a brainwashing element to religion, too. The result is a frightening world full of conflict and enormous "lies". A dismal and volatile failure compared to a rational, free-thinking, co-operative world where we could be light years ahead of where we are ... so anyone who asks me to support any of these things, or "play along" is not going to get a welcome reception.

I just wanted to give a few different views on this. Simply focusing on "lies" and "truth" is too simplistic, and almost begging for conflict. Sometimes I try to imagine what the world would be like if we all lived up to our thinking potential, and new discoveries weren't mired down for decades or centuries trying to fight against superstitions. And the economy wasn't run by uncontrollable, unsustainable greed. Reality is very depressing. But no make-believe answer is going to help.

Yes, there's a wide range of atheists and skeptics out there. I hope I gave you some idea of what the disagreements are. To me, it doesn't even matter if there's a god or not (though I see no evidence for it) ... the crawling machinery and lunacy of religion is unacceptable. I think that any talk of lies and truth will fall short of this mark.

Good comments above about accepting myth and superstition -- I'm just on a different wavelength at the moment. Not to be comical, but after the comment about atheists being largely selfish and unimpressive, the answer to "I'd love to hear that there's an emerging cadre of high conscience, high commitment, high courage atheists doing more than just chucking rocks at superstition." is ... I'd love to hear that there's an emerging cadre of high conscience, high commitment, high courage religious folks doing more than just chucking rocks at science.

Zoombie · Apr 29, 2008

You know, I have to respond to only a little segment about your post, Scott.

The bit about living in a scary world where we don't know all the answers. Am I the only one here who thinks not knowing everything is fantastic! That, if we knew everything about life and the universe and everything...then life would be...I don't know. Empty. There'd be no big goals to strive for. There'd just be your tiny life goals, like "not die till tomorrow" or "make out with Cindi after school and maybe cop a feel."

If all the big goals were gone, then the little goals would lose their luster and meaneing. That's why I take great comfort in the huge mysteries of the universe and the mysteries that doubtlessly lay under those mysteries.

For example, earlier today, some guy just ran up to me and gave me a high five, then ran off. Will I ever know why he did it? Not likely...but it kept me interested the rest of the day!

Now...moving off the tangent and onto more "on topic"ish stuff.

Lies and truth are a sticky, complex business. I try to keep my philosophy simple, because simplicity makes it easy to modify, quick to be used, and quite adaptable. As many technologists have learned over the years, it's not about adding things onto other things, it's about figuring out what can be left *off* that makes things better.

And so, my philosophy when it comes to lies and truth is extraordinarily simple: Do your best. If you think you heard the nine millimeter go off first, then the .38, say it. If it turns out you were wrong, you were wrong. People are wrong, often. But facing incorrectness with truthfulness will get you farther...and here is why!

If I say I didn't eat your pie when I actually did, then I will be actively attempting to keep you from ever learning that I ate your pie. But if I say, "Yeah, I ate your pie...sorry.", but later it is revealed that I only thought I ate your pie and it was really a different pie and this whole thing was way more complex than either of us could have imagined...well, because I'd be more open to this idea because I would be more focused on moving on (like, by baking a new pie) and more receptive to the idea that I could have been incorrect.

So...

That made no sense, did it?

The way I see it is a lie is nothing but trouble because soon you'll get caught, and getting caught is always worse than confessing. Confessing shows other people you're at least willing to try and make amends or fix it. Lying shows that you can't stand up to your mistakes in the first place, and, well, if you can't do that, you obviously can't be willing to make amends.

As for what lying is...what truths are...

That's too complicated for me. I'm a kinda gut instinct guy, I stick to the truth that I can see and touch and remember...and smell, if necessary.

Whoa, sorry, this post got a bit longer than I expected. Ah well, hopefully you guys can put up with my inane rambling.

Marian Perera · Apr 29, 2008

Regarding the idea that religious lies like "prayer will save your life" usually won't hurt, this is what happened to my family.

My mother had cancer. The doctors said it was terminal. Her church said she would get better if they prayed.

They prayed. They exorcised her (this was their cure for anemia, by the way, so she just got weaker until we took her to the hospital for blood transfusion). They carried out bizarre rituals like blessing water and making her drink it. They told her that God wouldn't let her die. So she kept believing she was going to get better, as she got worse and worse and died.

Since she felt sure she was going to be healed, all her legal affairs were up in the air when she died and my father took control of her estate. I was the only atheist in the family. My younger brother, who is a devout Christian, got his share of the land and the money my mother wanted us to have. I got nothing.

Maybe such lies don't hurt people. On the other hand, maybe they do.

Ruv Draba · Apr 29, 2008

Dommo said:
The sooner people can let go of the idea of "truth" the better off we'll be, as truth is always relative.

I agree with your engineer's view of "sufficient" truth Dommo, but I took a bit of issue with this statement, so here's a response.

Our views of the metaphysical world are highly subjective. We're not always in accord on our morality, our relationships, our self-images, and we can't always trust our individual memories of fleeting moments in our lives. That's true, and we didn't always realise it was so.

But for our physical world... we've spent 400 years exploring it methodically, and a hundred thousand years exploring it haphazardly, and the results are repeatable and reliable beyond even our wildest hopes. Outside of fiction, nobody finds that gravity is acting strangely today. Nobody gets frostbite from a hot stove-top. Ducks don't moo and cows don't quack. The physical world reliable enough for us to fly planes, and cut peoples' abdomens open without killing them, and drive over bridges that don't collapse. A reliable, repeatable physical reality allowed us to crawl slowly, painfully out of our caves. Our millennia of exploration have also given given the mystics and fakirs ample time to demonstrate convincingly and consistently that the physical world can somehow be changed by perceiving it differently.

Simply put, they haven't. (But they have been caught cheating an awful lot of times. :tongue

)

Ruv Draba · Apr 29, 2008

Queen of Swords said:
Regarding the idea that religious lies like "prayer will save your life" usually won't hurt, this is what happened to my family.

My mother had cancer. The doctors said it was terminal. Her church said she would get better if they prayed.

[8<---snip---8<]

Since she felt sure she was going to be healed, all her legal affairs were up in the air when she died and my father took control of her estate. I was the only atheist in the family. My younger brother, who is a devout Christian, got his share of the land and the money my mother wanted us to have. I got nothing.

Ouch, Queenie!

Did your father blame you for not praying? Yike.

This is what I mentioned before though: religion (actually I mean superstition in this instance) makes custom mandatory. I'm sure that you loved your mother and supported her in many valuable ways throughout her illness, but if you don't do it in the customary way, religion will condemn you for that.

Personally, I prefer truth to false hope, but here's the thing: the placebo effect works. It won't let you regrow a lost leg, but statistically it seems to help a bit in potentially curable conditions. So if you have nothing else, prayer might be halfway helpful - but only if you believe it is.

(Me, I'd be happy with a placebo of some other form. I'm all for telling myself lies to motivate me to good things - but I'm a might picky about the lies.)

Mac H. · Apr 29, 2008

You would expect people who believe in a higher 'observer' to be more honest.

Why? Simple - studies consistently show that people are more honest if they believe that are being watched !

It is very easy to look at simple figures to see the correlation between honestly/corruption and religion.

For example,

1. Get the figures of prayer per country from the World Values survey.
2. Get the figures of corruption per country for Transparency international.

Do a scatter plot of them.

What would you get?

See here: http://bp0.blogger.com/_8sY9bx8acNM...AHM/UCAe3LaNaGw/s200/prayer_vs_corruption.png

The interesting thing is that even with the communist countries (all grouped together!) included, there is a very significant trend.

Removing the communist countries emphasises the trend even more:
http://bp2.blogger.com/_8sY9bx8acNM...s200/prayer_vs_corruption_no_eastern_bloc.png

The source of the graphs (with commentary) is here.

Mac
(PS: Yes - I know the difference between correlation & cause-and-affect.)

Ruv Draba · Apr 29, 2008

Mac H. said:
You would expect people who believe in a higher 'observer' to be more honest, for the simple reason that studies consistently show that people are more honest if they believe that are being watched !

There was an 18th century idea for a prison called a "Panopticon". It was a prison in the half-round where guards could see out of shuttered windows but prisoners couldn't see the guards. The idea was that prisoners would alwaysfeel observed. I dunno about anyone else, but that's close to my idea of hell. Like the Big Brother House but without the loud-mouthed idiots.... :scared:

(Hmm, actually give me the Panopticon instead. :tongue

)

It is very simple to look at simple figures to see the correlation between honestly/corruption and religion.

What I see (or in fact infer) is a correspondence between poverty, poor social order and corruption, and another correspondence between poverty and religion. That's nothing terribly surprising. Both religious and non-religious people would acknowledge the two correlations I think.

But it does illustrate a point made earlier: get the social services right and people generally act better. Get them wrong, and religion doesn't help nearly enough.

(In fairness too, I think that a lot of religious social workers acknowledge the truth of this statement - why else would they lobby for more social services?)

Marian Perera · Apr 29, 2008

Ruv Draba said:
Ouch, Queenie! Did your father blame you for not praying? Yike.

There were other reasons, but that was one of them. A friend of my mother's was concerned because she knew I needed funds to migrate to Canada and was unemployed because I'd been taking care of my mom. She asked my father if he had transferred my brother's share of the money to his bank account, and he said yes.

Then she said, "And what are you doing for your daughter?"
He replied, "I'm praying for her."

Personally, I prefer truth to false hope, but here's the thing: the placebo effect works. It won't let you regrow a lost leg, but statistically it seems to help a bit in potentially curable conditions. So if you have nothing else, prayer might be halfway helpful - but only if you believe it is.

What I'd like people to do is take into account

1. the potential of the placebo to override or replace actual treatment. When she was very weak, for instance, they held an exorcism to drive out the unclean spirits which were causing her anemia.

2. the effects of what will happen if the placebo fails. No one ever told my mother, "We've prayed and that's a good thing, but it might also be good if you put your bank certificates in both your children's names, just to be on the safe side." Instead, they said, "Remember, whatever you ask for in Jesus's name you will receive, and we have asked that you be healed. The evil spirits are gone!"

Pup · Apr 29, 2008

scottVee said:
Not to be comical, but after the comment about atheists being largely selfish and unimpressive, the answer to "I'd love to hear that there's an emerging cadre of high conscience, high commitment, high courage atheists doing more than just chucking rocks at superstition." is ... I'd love to hear that there's an emerging cadre of high conscience, high commitment, high courage religious folks doing more than just chucking rocks at science.

LOL! I can agree with that.

If there wasn't religion, there'd be no need for a label like atheists. How would one recognize them as a cadre then? And why expect them to act in concert now if the primary goal isn't to do something against religion?

If the purpose of a group is to, I dunno, save the rainforests, or promote literacy, or give legal aid to the poor, there's no need to limit it only to people who do or don't believe in god.

So we notice religious organizations as being religious because they choose to limit themselves that way, but we don't notice "atheist" organizations because they're not called that, any more than they're called "non-astrology-believers" organizations or "non Santa Claus believers" organizations.

So the "good" atheists are lost in a sea of different organizations, while it's easy to point to people who believe in both god and a particular cause because that's the basis of their group.

Higgins · Apr 29, 2008

Mac H. said:
You would expect people who believe in a higher 'observer' to be more honest.

Why? Simple - studies consistently show that people are more honest if they believe that are being watched !

It is very easy to look at simple figures to see the correlation between honestly/corruption and religion.

For example,

1. Get the figures of prayer per country from the World Values survey.
2. Get the figures of corruption per country for Transparency international.

Do a scatter plot of them.

What would you get?

See here: http://bp0.blogger.com/_8sY9bx8acNM...AHM/UCAe3LaNaGw/s200/prayer_vs_corruption.png

The interesting thing is that even with the communist countries (all grouped together!) included, there is a very significant trend.

Removing the communist countries emphasises the trend even more:
http://bp2.blogger.com/_8sY9bx8acNM...s200/prayer_vs_corruption_no_eastern_bloc.png

The source of the graphs (with commentary) is here.

Mac
(PS: Yes - I know the difference between correlation & cause-and-affect.)

so the more you pray the more corrupt you are?

I mean if you look at the graph...less Praying Denmark is one of the least corrupt.
And the trend line runs from highly corrupt, highly prayerful Bangledesh toward
not very prayerful, uncorruptible Denmark.

Either I'm not getting your drift or my lack of prayer has enabled me to correctly
read graphs as well as making me less corrupt.

Dommo · Apr 29, 2008

Well, I could argue the opposite that an atheist might be as corrupt if not more so than a religious individual, and I can assure you the argument is easy to make. This "superiority" complex that so many secularists have really does come off as a matter of pure arrogance(this coming from an agnostic atheist).

The more realistic reason for the lack of corruption up there probably has more to do with stable government and a relative lack of poverty. Bangladesh is an overpopulated nation, that's been on the brink of disaster for decades. In such a place I could easily see corruption as running rampant, as people are doing anything they can to better their living situations.

Denmark on the other hand is rock solid stable, the poor are taken care of, and the nation is wealthy. People have less reason to cheat, when their survival isn't on the line. It's relatively true here in America, but I think our culture of money worship is what causes a lot of our problems. While a lot of things here in America, aren't illegal per se, I'd call the actions of a lot of corporate heads to be nearly as bad as the corrupt government worker(given that the impact of CEO decisions might affect thousands of peole).

I'd like to see a table that looks at personal corruption, as opposed to governmental, then I'd have a more accurate picture of where my country sits.

Ruv Draba · Apr 29, 2008

scottVee said:
Not to be comical, but after the comment about atheists being largely selfish and unimpressive, the answer to "I'd love to hear that there's an emerging cadre of high conscience, high commitment, high courage atheists doing more than just chucking rocks at superstition." is ... I'd love to hear that there's an emerging cadre of high conscience, high commitment, high courage religious folks doing more than just chucking rocks at science.

Actually, there's a large number of religious NGOs (Non Government Organisations) doing just that - providing international development services, for instance, as well as domestic charities.

There are secular NGOs too of course, and it may be that atheists are quietly beavering away in them without bothering to mention their views(and really, why should they?), so maybe we don't know. But what I can say is that the atheists I know well tend to be more your self-interested, grumbling individualistic materialists than humanitarians.

Or put another way, they're often smart people but I wouldn't necessarily call them brave or generous people.

I was talking to Mrs Draba about this last night, and said: You know, although I'm atheistic and consider religion to be full of deceit, I generally like religious people more than I like other atheists. John Lennon's dreamings aside, I don't think I'd like a largely atheistic world as much as I like the world we live in.

Mom'sWrite · Apr 29, 2008

Pup said:
So the "good" atheists are lost in a sea of different organizations, while it's easy to point to people who believe in both god and a particular cause because that's the basis of their group.

Exactly. I don't understand the assumption that everyone who contributes to a religiously-based charitable organisation is a believer in that particular doctrine. I give clothes and money and time to Christian-based organisations though I'm not Christian. I don't have to sign a waiver saying that my contributions are tainted by my non-belief. (I don't however participate in any way with organisations that demand recruitment before they will offer relief. Mama don't dig conversion at the point of a sword.) Non-believers don't run charitable organisations because so few have come out and admitted to their astonished friends and family that their personal truth admits no deities.

soleary · Apr 29, 2008

I'd be an atheist if I believed in it.

I am a tolerant God loving spiritual sort who loves all and respects all. I have never felt that it is right to think my beliefs should be anyone else's beliefs but my own.

Life is short, so why not find ways to learn from those around you, and love and live any way you see fit?

Mac H. · Apr 29, 2008

Dommo said:
The more realistic reason for the lack of corruption up there probably has more to do with stable government and a relative lack of poverty. Bangladesh is an overpopulated nation, that's been on the brink of disaster for decades. In such a place I could easily see corruption as running rampant, as people are doing anything they can to better their living situations.

Take Bangladesh out then. Because Bangladesh sits on the line, you can take it out of the dataset and the trend line will be basically the same.

I'd like to see a table that looks at personal corruption, as opposed to governmental, then I'd have a more accurate picture of where my country sits.

Easy enough - there are plenty of studies.

This one: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a787968693 for example.

It found a curious result:
1. Personal religion had NO affect on the level of personal honesty.
2. However, exposing someone to religious imagery before the honesty test made you 'more' honest .. no matter what your religion !

We humans are funny creatures.

Mac

Ruv Draba · Apr 29, 2008

soleary said:
I'd be an atheist if I believed in it.

I am a tolerant God loving spiritual sort who loves all and respects all. I have never felt that it is right to think my beliefs should be anyone else's beliefs but my own.

Hi Soleary, welcome to the thread and thanks for your contribution.

I think that there are a lot of religious people who don't strive to evangelise. They live lives of quiet faith and fellowship, help people as they can but don't push help or views that others don't want. I have great respect for such people. They're often very nice people indeed, and I enjoy hanging with them (most of the time I even prefer to hang with them over hanging with fellow atheists).

Now I have a political question for you - you needn't answer if you don't want, but here it is:

Since you don't feel that your beliefs need to be propagated, does that mean you'd actively oppose (i.e. object to, and vote against) religious institutions influencing social policy? Would you object even if said religious institution shared your beliefs and values? Or are you happy for a religious institution to lobby on your behalf even if you don't lobby yourself?

Here's the thing: I think that most people would prefer to live in a society where more people had the same beliefs and values as themselves (I don't feel that way about beliefs at least, but I think I'm in a minority). In other words, we tend to grudgingly tolerate multiculturalism rather than embracing it.

In a democracy, you can lobby for just about anything that's not proscribed by your constitution. So if you want to see more of your religion taught in schools, or more funding to chaplaincies, or more public monies directed to religious NGOs that work in your community, you can lobby for that - and indeed it's hard to see why someone of a particular faith wouldn't lobby for that if they could.

But the moment that public monies are directed toward promoting ideology, the legitimacy of the ideology itself comes under scrutiny. This doesn't just happen in religious ideologies but also secular ones (like: should schools teach Marxist or Keynsian economics or something else). Suddenly it's not 'live and let live', but 'my ideology is better, more worthy, more deserving than yours'.

There are only a few religions that don't try and evangelise or are forbidden to enter politics (e.g. Bahá'í faithful are forbidden to get political, and Zoroastrianism doesn't evangelise because you have to be born into the religion). There are only a few democratic constitutions that truly strive to separate political society from religious society (the French constitution has a fair crack at it). For the rest (in countries like the US, the UK and Australia, say), the constitution has a distinctly religious feel, and religious lobby groups certainly take advantage of that at times.

The idea that faith is individual is certainly appealing to many people, but that seems not to be the way that religious institutions and many societies are presently set up. I think that it's hard to be truly tolerant of cultural diversity when folk are knifing each other in the backroom over public monies.

Now, here's another question for you, and it's a bit more writing-related:

Do you think it reasonable that cultures get to test and comment on the values and beliefs of the religions they support?

Or put another way, if a religion chooses to evangelise, is it legitimate for society to critique what is being sold to the punters? Can a whole religion hide behind the 'It's my sacred faith and you can't comment' line, in the way that individuals do?

Hmm... maybe that's another thread.

Mac H. · Apr 29, 2008

Ruv Draba said:
There are only a few democratic constitutions that truly strive to separate political society from religious society (the French constitution has a fair crack at it). For the rest (in countries like the US, the UK and Australia, say), the constitution has a distinctly religious feel ...

Hmm ... the Australian constitution has a 'written by a committee' feel to rather than a religious feel.

The opening paragraph makes a throw-away reference to God, who is then totally ignored for the rest of the document. In fact, the only reference to religion is the simple:

The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test
shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth

The Aussie constitution is mainly a simple summary of how the powers between State & Federal is divided up. The states were adamant that the federal government wasn't going to affect the important decision: BEER (Section 113).

In fact , the vitalness of the federal government not being able to affect the state's beer production gets an earlier mention than money, taxes and armed forces!

Mac
(Ref: http://www.comlaw.gov.au/comlaw/comlaw.nsf/440c19285821b109ca256f3a001d59b7/57dea3835d797364ca256f9d0078c087/$FILE/ConstitutionAct.pdf )

Ruv Draba · Apr 29, 2008

Mac H. said:
Hmm ... the Australian constitution has a 'written by a committee' feel to rather than a religious feel.

I'd say that it has both. In addition to a reference to God, there's also a reference to 'Lords Spiritual' in the preamble. (Apparently they had to consult with clergy before they formed federation.) Every member of parliament and the senate is required to make an Oath or Affirmation of alleigance which exists in either a monotheistic or non-theistic form (polytheists don't get their own oath, apparently).

Moreover, the constitution does not prohibit certain religious observances forming part of the ceremonies of the Parliament. Presently (and for all I know since Federation), both Houses of Parliament open with a Judaeo-Christian prayer led by either the Speaker of the House or the President. As you'll probably know, there's nothing preventing our local Head of State being clergy, and in fact this has happened only recently.

In short, this is not a secular constitution.

The Aussie constitution is mainly a simple summary of how the powers between State & Federal is divided up. The states were adamant that the federal government wasn't going to affect the important decision: BEER (Section 113).

Yes, it's an administrative document and the administration of BEER is important!

Of Lies, Liars and Atheism

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