From Miller-McCune:
In a new study drawing on nearly a half century of data, a team of researchers report that religious adherents in the United States — especially fundamentalist Christians — are more inclined than agnostics to harbor racist attitudes toward blacks and other minorities.This “religion-racism paradox,” as University of Southern California social psychologist Wendy Wood explains it, is deeply embedded in organized religion which, by its very nature, encourages people to accept one fundamental belief system as superior to all others. The required value judgment creates a kind of us-versus-them conflict, in which members of a religious group develop ethnocentric attitudes toward anyone perceived as different…
Compounding the effect, the study’s authors explain, are similarities in the moral makeup of people drawn to religion and of people who exhibit racist attitudes and behavior. Previous studies have shown that religious adherents are more likely than agnostics and atheists to rate conservative “life values” as the most important principles underlying their belief systems.
Those specific values — social conformity and respect for tradition — also most closely correlate with racism. In short, people are attracted to organized religion for the same reason some people are inclined toward racist thinking: a belief in the sanctity of established divisions in society.
And as Bob Altemeyer has shown, racism and fundamentalism are among the attitudes that are closely related to life experience, or rather its lack. Authoritarian attitudes like believing in the sanctity of societal divisions tend to dissipate when people are brought perforce to experience. Such attitudes are relatively easy to maintain when everyone around you thinks the same thoughts and you never meet people of the type you despise. When you're forced to meet them, you generally find they're not like you thought they were.
I do have a small objection, though, to the description of "organized religion which, by its very nature, encourages people to accept one fundamental belief system as superior to all others." This is certainly true about Western religions — Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — but not, or at least much less so, about the major Eastern religions, Buddhism and Hinduism. The Dalai Lama, for example, famously suggested to a group of American Episcopalians assembled in his honor that they all worshipped the same God, and it was the Westerners who demurred.
A big part of the problem, IMO, are the claims of the three Western religions to historical accuracy. Many of these claims are known by scholars to be false, and many others are based on not a shred of evidence. Yet believing that the stories are true is a central requirement of Christianity, in fact for Pauline Christianity it's the central requirement. Believe and you're saved, it doesn't matter what you do. It's easy to see why this philosophy is attractive to soldiers and merchants. And therefore to politicians.
Which gives me an opening to sneak in a Gibbon quote.
In an age of religious fervour, the most artful statesmen are observed to feel some of the enthusiasm which they inspire; and the most orthodox saints assume the dangerous privilege of defending the cause of truth by the arms of deceit and falsehood. Personal interest is often the standard of our belief, as well as of our practice…Posted by: Chuck Dupree on May 5, 2010 7:20 PM
I suppose every one knows I am an agnostic. However, I have become involved in organized religion. And in that respect, I am living the life of a hypocrite in various ways.
And I must admit, for the first time in my life, I am enjoying the sermons at the church I attend as I have been encouraged to reach out to "even the least of these".
Even though I can't swallow much of what I hear in the mantras spoken at church, and specifically "communion" by drinking blood and eating flesh, I can do my part in following the "simple maxims of the gospel".
Whether I "believe" is unimportant to me. Perhaps it helps that the minister at our church is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School. But sometimes I cannot stomach some of what I hear, and yet I continue on in this group. Perhaps it helps that he church I attend has involved itself into helping those within and without our little community to help those who need help in various ways.
The tendency of people to organize themselves into tribes, factions, parties and other forms or methods by which humans justify to separate themselves from their neighbors is not confined to just religion. Might I propose that even atheists sometimes use the very term to also separate themselves into something "separate and apart" - and often superior to and from their neighbors - and often use this is a means of calling themselves "superior" to their neighbors?
Do atheists belong to a tribe? A faction? Something else? I cannot answer that. However, organized religion has allowed me opportunities to give back to my community by helping the poor (or at least that's what I think I'm doing). To reach out to even the "least of these". If atheism or agnosticism offers me that opportunity as an organized force to "help the poor", I have not seen it in my community. Do atheists take up the mantle to do good to "even the least of these"? If so, how?
Might I suggest that if atheism is ever to command a large number of adherents in this country, perhaps it might be helpful for it to "borrow" some of the "simple maxims of the gospels" of Christ by helping out in their communities in an organized fashion. Otherwise, I would suggest that it might be helpful to keep atheism to oneself. I don't feel the need to trumpet my agnosticism. Why do atheists?
Posted by: Buck on May 6, 2010 3:37 AM