I'm a follower of many religions and spiritualities. I went through them in a serial fashion in my younger days - raised Episcopalian, became an atheist, took vows with a Tibetan Guru, followed Krishnamurti, became a member of the Vedanta Society, converted to Catholicism, read the Sufi poems of Rumi, Kabir, and Hafiz. Well, you. get the picture. I am a seeker. The funny thing is that now that I am an old man I find value in all of them. I cannot enter an Anglican Church without getting a special stirring in my soul. I am taking an online course with a Tibetan Meditation Master.. I'm not afraid of death because I can envision the Catholic Priest coming to my bedside and giving me the last rights. And, of course, in my day-to-day life, I have profited immensely by being a part of the Stoic community. I guess I'm just a belt and suspender kind of guy. As to Christianity, put aside the stuff that a modern person finds hard to swallow and the human failures of the organized Church. What kind of person says "love your enemies?" Who else says if someone hits you on the cheek, turn the other cheek. If someone steals your shirt, give him your coat, or "sell everything you have and follow me."
My withdrawal from the Roman Catholic religion was finalized with its belief that you cannot enter Heaven unless you accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour (not sure if I worded that totally correctly, but you get the gist). My husband of 44 years is a fine human being. I’ve never met a better person. He’s also a Jew. I’m not going anywhere where he’s not welcome, even after death. Hopefully we’ll end up wherever Mahatma Gandhi is.
The question of the Trinity is also the reason why I prefer early Islamic Philosophy to late-antiquity/early medieval philosophy. It is still very "theological" but at least they skip the blatantly self-contradictory parts. :D
An interesting read, and sooo many comments...... It would be interesting to know whether the interest in faith based religions is on the decline, and if so, what, if anything do people replace that part of their lives with...
Mr. Pigliucci, I recently happened upon How To Be A Stoic and after thoroughly enjoying it, by way of navigating through your prior editorial mediums, I'm pleased to have found more of your works here -- and most recently on the topic of something so near and dear to me. Though my own deconversion from pentecostal Christianity "officially" began in college in 2016, what really laid the groundwork was being taught how to critically think and reason even earlier in high school, ironically at a very Christian private school but from a professor whom I still hold admiration for today. He would introduce me to Marcus Aurelius' Meditations and kick off my interest in virtue and Stoicism. Thanks for continuing to provide people like myself an avenue to learn more. I look forward to more of these "dinner parties".
This is a particularly relevant post for me, as I was out hiking with my wife the other day and I recounted to her how much wailing and gnashing of teeth my own refusal to be confirmed was in my family. I think that the method of my refusal was puerile and showy because I wanted to lash out in a situation in which I felt mostly powerless, but ultimately went back to--like you--feeling nothing but also observing the world and thinking more about its hypocrisies than its illogic.
To me it doesn't seem an essential problem of Catholicism that I can't observe a material change in the eucharist at the time of transubstantiation because I think science has repeatedly shown us that what isn't observable now could potentially be observable tomorrow, and that there are some things that may simply be impossible to observe or that may be ultimately unknowable and undiscoverable, and I'm fine with that. Similar to the trinity, I feel like I'm okay with the existence of a paradox. Though admittedly, my understanding of logic and philosophy is less developed than your own.
As I understand it, you're articulating a position based on what philosophers call "positivism" (no?) and it seems to me to grant a certainty and authority to science that I'm not terribly comfortable with.
To me, the real problem is simply that as a philosophy it is unsatisfying, and that there are a myriad of other thinkers apart from Jesus, the Elohist, etc. who have said all of the stuff people admire in the bible but that don't require you believe fantastical, unobservable things in order to benefit from them. Moreover, the balance of the truly awful things you'll find in the bible, from genocide, to capital punishment, to elitism, to certainty, to eternal punishment, is much heavier than some of the objectionable stuff you might run into with Epictetus (misogyny that is, frankly, still pretty run-of-the-mill in 2023) and Confucius (conformity to authority).
In stoic terms I think, perhaps, of observability as a "preferred indifferent." I'm okay with accepting some form of mystery if it's necessary, but if a philosophy or line of logic can get at the same concept without requiring that mystery, then why would I choose the one that requires I accept the mystery?
This is hard for me to articulate, but the problem is less on what it *can't* show and more on what it *does* show. It's a sort of philosophical dead end where all problems have the same answer. As Libanius tells John Chrysostom at the end of Gore Vidal's "Julian": they have turned their back on life and embraced death!
I encountered a copy of Why I Am Not A Christian about four months after I rejected Catholicism in favor of atheism at the age of 19. I’ve been interested in philosophy ever since reading that book.
I had many questions, e.g., why would an omniscient being create a universe in which he found it necessary to create a hell, but it was a course in astronomy that paved the way to my becoming an atheist. How could the god of the Bible, who couldn’t even find Adam and had to ask where he was, create such an incomprehensibly vast universe? Upon learning about the Drake Equation, I wondered if Jesus had to visit every single planet that harbored life so he could die for their sins.
Having attended countless masses and religion classes (I attended Catholic schools for nine years and served as an altar boy) I didn’t feel compelled to explore other denominations or religions. Enough was enough. I can still remember the last Sunday mass I attended, in December 1986.
I was raised Catholic too. Perhaps not as rigorously as in Italy.
I abandoned Catholicism while taking theology at Santa Clara. At first, over the problem of evil, reinforced by reading much of the Bible.
I then adopted the scientific ethic “Thou shall not believe shit w/o evidence”.
There we other absurdities:
Transubstantiation in the light of Quantum Mechanics is either absurd or trivial. Quantum Mechanically we are in a sense all made of the same ‘substance’ (identical particles) and it doesn’t take any mumbo jumbo to make it so.
The Trinity is even more absurd. We were told in Catechism that as mere humans we could not understand the Trinity but must believe it. It beats me how one can believe something you don’t understand.
Great post (as always!). I do wonder what your position is regarding someone who goes through the rituals of baptism or confirmation, etc., for family or cultural reasons even if they don’t “believe” or buy into the illogical positions. Can there be ethical or moral or other reasons for going ahead with the traditions in some cases that wouldn’t violate one’s sense of character?
My journey out of Christianity was not based on a reasoned process of inquiry, but was an epiphany. I was in my 20's coming off of a significant personal loss and I had turned to my cradle religion, Catholicism. I was driving home on day and listening to some religious radio show where they were debating some theological distinction and I realized in a very certain way that this was all made up. A reverse religious conversion in that it was a powerful experience. I call it my Epiphany on the Turnpike to Philadelphia.
Thanks for your reflections, and the prompt to others to do the same. At 17, after years of devotion, I was lucky enough to see the truth. (Yes there’s a great song with the opening line “I learned the truth at 17.”). It descended on me like the clichéd bolt. Eating meat on Fridays might condemn me to Hell? What the hell was hell, except as expressed in the fantastic fiction of Dante? A first good kiss might do the same. Like a house of cards, every Catholic-based belief I had collapsed and, over time, I came to know and detest the consequences of organized religion. They continue, while providing comfort to some, and harm to many. When I was 18 or so, I met Aristotle and, more than a half-century later, seek wisdom from different philosophies, which teach reasoning and not obeisance.
Massimo, how do you get reconcile your atheism and also the fact the guys like Socrates had deep religious beliefs and practices; same goes for most stoics as far as we know?
You left your religion (Catholicism) because of two manifest absurdities. I left what is in some ways a less absurd religion (Judaism) for a more fundamental reason. Judaism, like every other religion as far as I know) regards it as virtuous to believe certain things without adequate reason, provided the're the *right* things. Exposure to Russell (though I can't now point to any one specific piece of writing) convinced me that this was not so.
The creationists maintain that in the last resort it is a moral choice, whether to impose their supposedly biblical interpretation on reality, or to rely on human reasoning. I agree.
Thank you, as always. A slight digression and small request: I share your opinion that Marxism is unappealing due to its similarities to religion. I hope you can find time to explore your thoughts on this in a future essay. If religion is the opiate of the masses, Marxism in the USA seems to be the opiate of the elites. It has a teleology of history and an eschatological theory of the end of history.
I'm a follower of many religions and spiritualities. I went through them in a serial fashion in my younger days - raised Episcopalian, became an atheist, took vows with a Tibetan Guru, followed Krishnamurti, became a member of the Vedanta Society, converted to Catholicism, read the Sufi poems of Rumi, Kabir, and Hafiz. Well, you. get the picture. I am a seeker. The funny thing is that now that I am an old man I find value in all of them. I cannot enter an Anglican Church without getting a special stirring in my soul. I am taking an online course with a Tibetan Meditation Master.. I'm not afraid of death because I can envision the Catholic Priest coming to my bedside and giving me the last rights. And, of course, in my day-to-day life, I have profited immensely by being a part of the Stoic community. I guess I'm just a belt and suspender kind of guy. As to Christianity, put aside the stuff that a modern person finds hard to swallow and the human failures of the organized Church. What kind of person says "love your enemies?" Who else says if someone hits you on the cheek, turn the other cheek. If someone steals your shirt, give him your coat, or "sell everything you have and follow me."
My withdrawal from the Roman Catholic religion was finalized with its belief that you cannot enter Heaven unless you accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour (not sure if I worded that totally correctly, but you get the gist). My husband of 44 years is a fine human being. I’ve never met a better person. He’s also a Jew. I’m not going anywhere where he’s not welcome, even after death. Hopefully we’ll end up wherever Mahatma Gandhi is.
The question of the Trinity is also the reason why I prefer early Islamic Philosophy to late-antiquity/early medieval philosophy. It is still very "theological" but at least they skip the blatantly self-contradictory parts. :D
An interesting read, and sooo many comments...... It would be interesting to know whether the interest in faith based religions is on the decline, and if so, what, if anything do people replace that part of their lives with...
Mr. Pigliucci, I recently happened upon How To Be A Stoic and after thoroughly enjoying it, by way of navigating through your prior editorial mediums, I'm pleased to have found more of your works here -- and most recently on the topic of something so near and dear to me. Though my own deconversion from pentecostal Christianity "officially" began in college in 2016, what really laid the groundwork was being taught how to critically think and reason even earlier in high school, ironically at a very Christian private school but from a professor whom I still hold admiration for today. He would introduce me to Marcus Aurelius' Meditations and kick off my interest in virtue and Stoicism. Thanks for continuing to provide people like myself an avenue to learn more. I look forward to more of these "dinner parties".
This is a particularly relevant post for me, as I was out hiking with my wife the other day and I recounted to her how much wailing and gnashing of teeth my own refusal to be confirmed was in my family. I think that the method of my refusal was puerile and showy because I wanted to lash out in a situation in which I felt mostly powerless, but ultimately went back to--like you--feeling nothing but also observing the world and thinking more about its hypocrisies than its illogic.
To me it doesn't seem an essential problem of Catholicism that I can't observe a material change in the eucharist at the time of transubstantiation because I think science has repeatedly shown us that what isn't observable now could potentially be observable tomorrow, and that there are some things that may simply be impossible to observe or that may be ultimately unknowable and undiscoverable, and I'm fine with that. Similar to the trinity, I feel like I'm okay with the existence of a paradox. Though admittedly, my understanding of logic and philosophy is less developed than your own.
As I understand it, you're articulating a position based on what philosophers call "positivism" (no?) and it seems to me to grant a certainty and authority to science that I'm not terribly comfortable with.
To me, the real problem is simply that as a philosophy it is unsatisfying, and that there are a myriad of other thinkers apart from Jesus, the Elohist, etc. who have said all of the stuff people admire in the bible but that don't require you believe fantastical, unobservable things in order to benefit from them. Moreover, the balance of the truly awful things you'll find in the bible, from genocide, to capital punishment, to elitism, to certainty, to eternal punishment, is much heavier than some of the objectionable stuff you might run into with Epictetus (misogyny that is, frankly, still pretty run-of-the-mill in 2023) and Confucius (conformity to authority).
In stoic terms I think, perhaps, of observability as a "preferred indifferent." I'm okay with accepting some form of mystery if it's necessary, but if a philosophy or line of logic can get at the same concept without requiring that mystery, then why would I choose the one that requires I accept the mystery?
This is hard for me to articulate, but the problem is less on what it *can't* show and more on what it *does* show. It's a sort of philosophical dead end where all problems have the same answer. As Libanius tells John Chrysostom at the end of Gore Vidal's "Julian": they have turned their back on life and embraced death!
I encountered a copy of Why I Am Not A Christian about four months after I rejected Catholicism in favor of atheism at the age of 19. I’ve been interested in philosophy ever since reading that book.
I had many questions, e.g., why would an omniscient being create a universe in which he found it necessary to create a hell, but it was a course in astronomy that paved the way to my becoming an atheist. How could the god of the Bible, who couldn’t even find Adam and had to ask where he was, create such an incomprehensibly vast universe? Upon learning about the Drake Equation, I wondered if Jesus had to visit every single planet that harbored life so he could die for their sins.
Having attended countless masses and religion classes (I attended Catholic schools for nine years and served as an altar boy) I didn’t feel compelled to explore other denominations or religions. Enough was enough. I can still remember the last Sunday mass I attended, in December 1986.
I was raised Catholic too. Perhaps not as rigorously as in Italy.
I abandoned Catholicism while taking theology at Santa Clara. At first, over the problem of evil, reinforced by reading much of the Bible.
I then adopted the scientific ethic “Thou shall not believe shit w/o evidence”.
There we other absurdities:
Transubstantiation in the light of Quantum Mechanics is either absurd or trivial. Quantum Mechanically we are in a sense all made of the same ‘substance’ (identical particles) and it doesn’t take any mumbo jumbo to make it so.
The Trinity is even more absurd. We were told in Catechism that as mere humans we could not understand the Trinity but must believe it. It beats me how one can believe something you don’t understand.
One is tempted to conclude that a Trinitarian is a polytheist who can't count.
Great post (as always!). I do wonder what your position is regarding someone who goes through the rituals of baptism or confirmation, etc., for family or cultural reasons even if they don’t “believe” or buy into the illogical positions. Can there be ethical or moral or other reasons for going ahead with the traditions in some cases that wouldn’t violate one’s sense of character?
My journey out of Christianity was not based on a reasoned process of inquiry, but was an epiphany. I was in my 20's coming off of a significant personal loss and I had turned to my cradle religion, Catholicism. I was driving home on day and listening to some religious radio show where they were debating some theological distinction and I realized in a very certain way that this was all made up. A reverse religious conversion in that it was a powerful experience. I call it my Epiphany on the Turnpike to Philadelphia.
Thanks for your reflections, and the prompt to others to do the same. At 17, after years of devotion, I was lucky enough to see the truth. (Yes there’s a great song with the opening line “I learned the truth at 17.”). It descended on me like the clichéd bolt. Eating meat on Fridays might condemn me to Hell? What the hell was hell, except as expressed in the fantastic fiction of Dante? A first good kiss might do the same. Like a house of cards, every Catholic-based belief I had collapsed and, over time, I came to know and detest the consequences of organized religion. They continue, while providing comfort to some, and harm to many. When I was 18 or so, I met Aristotle and, more than a half-century later, seek wisdom from different philosophies, which teach reasoning and not obeisance.
Massimo, how do you get reconcile your atheism and also the fact the guys like Socrates had deep religious beliefs and practices; same goes for most stoics as far as we know?
This needs wide sharing, among atheists as well as among Christians (and not just the Roman variety). Thanks, Dr. Dr. M.
You left your religion (Catholicism) because of two manifest absurdities. I left what is in some ways a less absurd religion (Judaism) for a more fundamental reason. Judaism, like every other religion as far as I know) regards it as virtuous to believe certain things without adequate reason, provided the're the *right* things. Exposure to Russell (though I can't now point to any one specific piece of writing) convinced me that this was not so.
The creationists maintain that in the last resort it is a moral choice, whether to impose their supposedly biblical interpretation on reality, or to rely on human reasoning. I agree.
Thank you, as always. A slight digression and small request: I share your opinion that Marxism is unappealing due to its similarities to religion. I hope you can find time to explore your thoughts on this in a future essay. If religion is the opiate of the masses, Marxism in the USA seems to be the opiate of the elites. It has a teleology of history and an eschatological theory of the end of history.