RATE: 12
Nearly a year and a half ago I got into one of my most heated Open Salon discussions, chiefly with the wise Ben Sen. We were arguing over the importance of religions symbols, creating religious and atheist movements, and whether proseltyzing was justified. I said I would write another post on the subject after a couple days cooling off.
Better late than never?
Is the very act of attempting to convert others an assault on their culture and dignity? Does the cultural context make a difference? Is "converting" someone to atheism the same as converting them to a faith?
The fallout from the crazy missionaries stealing children in Haiti under the rationale that the children will be better off raised in a different brand of Christianity (non-papist?) than they would if their families stayed intact has brought these issues further to light in the public.
Clearly, these missionaries are among the worse out there. We can assume with confidence that most missionaries don't kidnap children. But perhaps this is just an example of the extreme logical result of the missionary approach?
One has to be pretty cocky to imagine that they personally have such a hold on the truth and the way to salvation, that they are qualified to go to another culture on another continent and show these strangers the right way. Who are these people anyways who think they know it all? (I mean, I knew it all when I was 19 years old, but have been getting progressively dumber ever since. These missionaries aren't all 19 years old.)
As an atheist, I come from the perspective that religious faiths are misguided. (Yes I'm cocky too, but aren't we all?) So perhaps I have it in for all missionaries. But as an atheist in a dominant Christian society and as a civil libertarian, I also put a premium on religious tolerance and religious pluralism.
If I'm to suggest that religious missionaries don't have the right to persuade others' into their world view, than I as an atheist shouldn't as well. Some religions, like Judiasm or Hinduism, traditionally don't seek converts. I remember talking to a nice Quaker lady who told me that even when she's talking to someone who shows genuine interest in the Society of Friends that she has to be careful regarding whether to invite them to a meeting, because that could be considered attempting a conversion.
So should we take the Quaker example and just let people be? Leave everyone alone?
No. That would be the cultural relativist route. It's the easy solution. It's bullshit.
If you think you have the answers; if you think you have the right solution for achieving salvation; if you are confident in your belief; then you should be able to share that of others. That includes people of different cultural backgrounds.
But what is the right way? Most of us would agree that kidnapping children is unjustified. What should the rules be?
Much of the world's history has involved mass conversions at the point of a sword. Indeed, that's what's responsible for the growth of the the world's most populous religions. Generally we can agree that is an unjustified manipulation of individuals and other cultures.
What about when giving aid in a disaster? Can you hand out Bibles along with rice? Even with no pressure?
This month on NPR's Talk of the Nation, Father Ken Gavin of the Jesuit Refugee Service USA was asked by a Neal Conan whether their organization proselytizes in Haiti and he responded in clear language: "We, ourselves, do not. Of course, we fundamentally see that as a basically as a violation of the deepest of human rights, and especially in a situation where people are so traumatically involved, such as Haiti. It seems to us absolutely unfair and unjust to proselytize."
Of course, a Jesuit may not feel the pressure to further proselytize in Catholic dominated Haiti. But the Jesuit Refugee Service operates in many countries including Muslim majority Indonesia and don't feel the need to proselytize anywhere.
Proselytizing while you're handing food to hungry people or rebuilding their homes is the parallel to proselytizing with a sword, the missionary is exploiting their position of privilege and power to cajole people to convert.
The only way to convert ethically then is to do so when you're on equal footing. Perhaps the Mormons or the Jehovah's Witnesses have it figured out. They fan across their communities and the world, often to different cultures, and seek to meet and talk to people one on one. Of course, part of their strategy is to ask people if they need any help with anything. I had a friendly young man at my door recently offer to do my dishes and yard work for me. Clearly they're using a psychological trick of putting potential converts in a position to owe them something back.
In the rare occasion I find myself in a church I see bulletins and pictures of all their mission trips. In pictures they are clearly doing development work. That could very well be their chief focus; but they are still referring to themselves asmissionaries. Their mission is convert. Even if their proselytizing is passive, it's there and they're doing it to people with whom they are creating an unbalanced power dynamic. Perhaps the standard should involve asking if people are doing their work "as Christians" (or whatever faith) and not "as a human being."
One of my favorite novels is The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, about a family of misguided missionaries in the Congo in the 1960s. The family is culturally clueless and we see the different ways that cultural imperialism has disastrous consequences for all involved. Like the "well-intentioned" kidnapping Idahoans, they are misguided cultural imperialists.
Telling a disaster victim, or a sick person, or a hungry person, or someone who needs potable water or shelter that you'll help them and just ask them to accept the word of God in return is an assault on their dignity. I know Jesus did that himself, but it's manipulation all the same.
Comments
But you are absolutely correct in that you need to be on “equal footing” to have these conversations.
I would take this even a bit further than you have with your examples and add our own children to the mix. The power disparity between children and their parents is huge.
The forced indoctrination of the young into the dogmas of parental religion borders on abuse (and there are many incursions on the borders).
Imagine if we only exposed our children to one kind of political philosophy (Marxism), one kind of medical treatment (homeopathy), one view on history (anglo-centric and anti-Semitic of course), one kind of music (polka); and then told them they would painfully burn eternally in a fiery pit if they strayed from our teachings. Who would condone this? Why do we condone it for religious beliefs?
My position is basically that proselytizing is more often antithetical to true "faith" than enhancing. It has caused as much damage as it has led the collective forward. It could well be a necessary "step" given the development of human consciousness, but not a final destination.
If you study the history of most major religions, you will see they often have a branch that eschew proselytizing for exactly that reason. They call them the "esoteric" forms--such as Sufism--and the great Christian mystics such as Meister Eckehart and Jakob Bohme, who emphasized one's personal relationship to diety rather than what is taught by the religious institutions.
The institutions have goals of their own--such as supporting their hierarchy that have little if anything to with "spirituality." They often simply become the ideologists for representing themselves and nothing else. Hence, children are stolen from their parents in Haiti, governments are formed and dissolved on the basis of religious affiliation (Iraq , Iran and Israel) and an army of xenophobes is formed that turn a nation toward militarism (the US).
The religions themselves become the force that promotes inhumanity rather that humanity. Thus, it is no mystery many of the most sensitive and conscientious have become athiests. The only caution I have is whether the determination is made as a result of looking "inward" at one's self, or outward at the horrible damage that has been done, and that most are totally oblivious to out of their own need for security.
What I've started to see on the blogs is a lot of athiests who seem periously close to proselytizers themselves. It's very understandable given how clear it is in the world today of the damage religion has done, and continues to do, but the anger of many athiests makes me doubt their motives.
One note: Hindus do indeed proselytize. Some "forms" more than other such as the "bhakti" practioners who are not unlike the evangelicals. "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna..) Also, among your non-proselytizers you may want to mention the Zenists. Not only do they strickly forbid selling the faith, they think god is "optional" in ones belief structure. Their "idea" is to live their faith.
Mark, I don't know if I would put it quite as strongly, but I too am troubled by the degree people purposely indoctrinate their kids from an early age. That seems like a whole other huge topic.
As a parent of two young ones, I've found it challenging to avoid foisting my beliefs on them. My six year old is very inquisitive (for which I am proud) and asks lots of questions on the difference between what her parents believe, what her grandparents believe, and others. I try to answer her questions non-judgmentally, even though on some points I have strongly held thoughts. She's not dumb, so she sees some of my biases. But I've been very careful to demonstrate tolerance for different ways of looking at the world.
The problem with indoctrinating young kids is not so much the power differential (although it's there), but parents have near exclusive and continual access to their kids during the first years of their lives and can use this monopoly to expose them to emotionally and developmentally manipulative dogmas.
I had the understanding that most Hindus hold that one should stick to the religion they were born in, but I know it is a diverse belief tradition and I know little of it. I appreciate your perspective.
I'll totally agree with you that it is the religious institutions that are often responsible for injustices to humanity. But it is impossible to separate the individual from the institution. (Though I don't know if you're claiming that.) Individuals holding dogmatic beliefs have been used by religious institutions and themselves use religious institutions for nefarious purposes.
I don't quite understand your point about why people become atheists and how exactly they are oblivious.
I feel you're poking me a little by saying atheists become proselytizers because they are "angry." I'd probably consider myself a proselytizing atheist and I've known "angry" atheists. (Though I'd call them defeatist or cynical atheists.) As my post illustrates, I don't see anything wrong in proselytizing in of itself. Proselytizing others to your way of looking at the world doesn't automatically mean you're creating a pseudo-religious institution. You doubt these angry atheists' motives. What would distinguish a bad motive from a good motive when it comes to proselytizing?
(Frankly, I think the motive is less important. Many religious missionaries have admirable motives; they just use abusive and manipulative means to serve their goals; sometimes unintentionally.)
I am always a bit put off by those religions that judge and condemn or go above the law, as these missionaries in Haiti did with these children. They crossed a very big line there and were acting in a role that clearly broke the law and removed children from access to their own living parents. Though in some cases, the parents consented, there was still an underlying tone that they were right despite the caution or the law.
If we are to be true givers in life, it must be with no strings attached.
Religion like politics is very subjective and not to be judged or imposed on the vulnerability of others who are struggling with their circumstamces.
I wish it was the cover today and was more widely read so a discussion would come of it.
When I lived in Newfoundland a group of fundamentalists came to a town north from St Johns where I lived and told the native Indians there that even tho' they went to church it was the wrong church and the wrong version of the bible. They got run out of the town.
What happened in Haiti is important to me and should be for all the world. I always get a laugh from listening/reading of Christians of one stripe calling the other stripe wrong for whatever reason. And the laugh is grim.
The truly sad part is the fact that the other Christians are not out there saying what they did was wrong, no they are trying to say what they did was somehow right.
I personally think the whole concept of missionaries is just wrong. I also do not think that forcing any religion on anyone is wrong as well. I do not consider myself religious here.
Good intentions might be a mitigation, but not an outright excuse. I recall that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Well, I don't believe in Hell, but you get the point.
If people want to convert others to their faith, fine. If people want to serve people through relief or development work, that's laudable. I don't see how you can ethically do both at the same time.
I think any organization has the potential for wrongdoing and manipulation with out the aid of a creator or not, Christian missionaries have just honed it to a craptacular science. It is far more disgusting when it is leveraging one's "faith" in a holy being. That is the classless act of desperate people. It is - in the case of Haiti - Christian exceptionalism. It should be noted, however that I am not in favor of Muslim, Hindu, Catholic or Flying Spaghetti Monster Exceptionalism either. Though I am more likely to accept the door to door preaching of the Spaghetti Monster folks, they just seem more rational...great post - thx, ak
I got busy over the wknd and didn't look back until now. I'm not referring to "athiests" as oblivious to the faults of organized religion as much as "believers" who out of their own needs fail to recognize the inhumanity of orthodoxy. Thus, "religion" becomes the bullwark of prejudice rather than acceptance.
I would disagree with you about whether the "motive" is important. Religion is inextricably linked to power and authority. In my own case, that power was abused and for many years I rebelled from faith of any type for that reason. I think it's true for many--the religion becomes the "symbol" they use to project their frustration and repression.
I don't in the least mean to "poke" anything at you. I think often the rejection of religion is based on a shallow analysis based on a condition that doesn't necessarily have to be true and could well cause more suffering than liberate a person from the bonds of the past, but I do not say or see any evidence that applies to you. I think you have a very reasoned approach and respect it entirely.
What once may have been the "faith" that sustained the multitudes necessarily changes as consciousness evolves in my view. Thus, we went from the matriarchy to the patriarchy, and now are headed back in the other direction.
Felicitations to a fellow travellor.
You put it well and I'm challenged to find any point with which to further quibble. I think that too many people don't truly examine their beliefs and prejudices. And yes, too often people who do reject mainstream institutions and ways of thinking ironically leave their new assumptions unexamined.
The story in the news about the study that found that atheists (and monogamous men) got the attention of a lot of my fellow godless heathen. I was disappointed in the unexamined embrace with the "Of course we're smarter attitude." They missed the key points of the study and the fact that it's just one study and one shouldn't put too much stock into it.
Plus, who cares about IQ? What matters is that you use what you got. Plenty of "smart" people don't.
I have a lot of bones to pick with"logic." I'm not sure it has anywhere near the sway in making choices that people think it does, and when they hold it up as a reason I should agree with them when it comes to matters of belief, I'm very suspicious. I know many athiests base their "belief" on it, and I think it's Dawkins (spelling) position as well, but I don't think it's really where the action is. More often then not, people's religious beliefs are "projections" of inner conflits caused by trauma of one sort of other that they are entirely unconscious of.
And yes, I think you are right: the vast majority are content to adapt whateve faith they are born into and live as hypocrites. If someone doesn't know what "projection" is and hasn't at least located one such attitude that derives from it, I'm afraid a conversation about "religion" is severly limited.