{"id":17290,"date":"2018-03-31T12:15:47","date_gmt":"2018-03-31T19:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=17290"},"modified":"2018-03-31T12:15:47","modified_gmt":"2018-03-31T19:15:47","slug":"it-is-not-polite-to-discuss-politics-and-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/it-is-not-polite-to-discuss-politics-and-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"It is not polite to discuss politics and religion…"},"content":{"rendered":"

In writing his book\u00a0The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion<\/em> Johnathan Haidt dismisses the old cliche, “It is not polite to discuss politics and religion”. In bringing these two topics to the forum he asks a very good question. Why are people so divided by these two topics? It does not matter what side of the coin you fall on, if someone argues against your position, the first reaction from most Americans is visceral at the very least. Take for example the following two statements: 1. I do not believe that practicing homosexuals should be allowed to marry, or 2. It is my body you have no right to tell me whether or not I can have an abortion. Say one of the two to the wrong crowd and you will be decried as either an intolerant, misogynistic, bigot, or a child killer, and do not try to change the others mind, you will just get anger and resentment thrown at you. So Haidt asks the question, why, why are we so divided.<\/p>\n

In the chapter, Religion Is a Team Sport,\u00a0 to be focused on in this discussion, I found something about myself that I always was concerned about. I see faces in inanimate objects all the time, whether it is a floor patter, the sky, bricks in a house. I always just assumed this was because I was just plain weird. I find out it is just my “hypersensitive agency detection device” [1]. Turns out we have a face recognition system that gives us false positives all the time. This point is the beginning of the New Atheists argument against religion. It is because of this device that our ancestors, thousands of years ago, saw things in nature, could not come up with a good explanation and attributed the thing to an unknown, at first, higher power. In fact, Haidt points out Richard Dawkins quote “no known culture lacks some version of the time-consuming, wealth-consuming, hostility-provoking rituals, the anti-factual, counterproductive fantasies of religion.” [2]\u00a0In the New Atheists world, religion is just a crutch for the weak minded. Instead, they argue that morality is a product of evolution. They argue that religion is a parasite or an infection that must be rid of in society before humanity can truly be evolved. They argue further “Scientists, humanists, and the small number of others who have escaped infection and are still able to reason must work together to break the spell, lift the delusion, and bring about the end of faith.’ [3]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Haidt then gives the argument for a better way, that:<\/p>\n

“Scientists who are not on the New Atheist team have been far more willing to say that religion might be an adaptation ()i.e., it might have evolve because it conferred benefits on individuals or groups?[4]\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

They argue that the advent of religion has helped humanity, not that it is always a good thing, the 911 bombings, the crusades, etc, but there are definite advantages to religion. It brings a community together. It can take care of those in need. The real shock from this section to me was the discussion of Richard Sosis work. He is an anthropologist who studied two hundred communes in the United states from the 19th century and found the communes based on a religious belief far outlived communes based on secular reasons. He came up with a central variable “the number of costly sacrifices that each commune demanded from its members” [5]. Sacrifice strengthened religious communes because, Sosis, argues sacrifices work when they have a sacred base, when there is no sacred reason, people have a tendency to buy into sacrifice. People are in life for themselves when there is no higher reason for living. I have seen this played out in my dealings with working along side homeless ministries. One thing churches get a glut of is people looking to find things to do to work off public service mandates from a court. At least, I have found this to be true in the churches where I have served. A person will come in, ask to do public service, do a poor job at what ever they were tasked with, ask for your signature and then never be seen again. Contrast that with a group from a church on a mission trip. I will describe one I took a youth group on after hurricane Ike along the Texas coast. I took 45 youth and adults (85%) youth, on a spring break trip to Liberty, Tx. Not what you would find listed in the “funnest spring break ideas” book. We worked on a church who had been hammered by the hurricane. Two buildings needed new roofs and an office area had to be rebuilt.We stayed at another church on cots and made our own food in the morning and evening and had sack lunches for lunch. We worked from 9 am till 5 pm for five straight days. They were not professionals, but they did a tremendous job and did not ask for a thing except to go back down to the area in the summer so they could help another church.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I know you do not have to be religious to help others, there are many organizations that do great work and have no affiliation with a church. I will argue though, through religion, this world is made a better place. Religious people in the United States give more per capita than secular give by a long ways, and not just to religious institutions.<\/p>\n

The one thing I found lacking in Haidt’s book was a point Aldric Hama said about it, “Why there is a pronounced anti-religious attitude permeating the West is not entirely addressed in the book and begs to be answered.” [6]<\/span> While Haidt brought out many good points on how religion can be a help to people he never asked or answered the above question. I have a good idea, people who do not know God do not have the Holy Spirit to guide them, in missing this equation there will always be animosity or at least a low level contempt for the things of God.<\/span><\/p>\n

[1]\u00a0Haidt, Jonathan.\u00a0The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion<\/i>. New York: Vintage Books, 2013. 292.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[2]\u00a0Ibid. 292.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[3] Ibid. 295.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[4]<\/span> Ibid. 296.<\/p>\n

[5] Ibid. 298.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[6]<\/span> Hama, Aldric. “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion.” The Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies 38, no. 3 (2013): 367-376.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In writing his book\u00a0The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion Johnathan Haidt dismisses the old cliche, “It is not polite to discuss politics and religion”. In bringing these two topics to the forum he asks a very good question. Why are people so divided by these two topics? It does […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":102,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17290"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17291,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17290\/revisions\/17291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}