Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
It's always interesting to see what is the final straw.
OK, I never really had a 'moment of enlightenment', when it came to religion. I grew up in the Catholic church, but somewhere around the time of puberty I started thinking about what they told me to believe and it just didn't really make any sense. That grew into a questioning of all kinds of religious nonsense over time, rejecting all of it and trying to be rational and realistic about the world. For me, it was just a process, not an event.
So I must admit to being somewhat interested to see what it is that causes some people to just break away from their religion - what is the "final straw", so to speak. Like this one:
'Crash' Director Paul Haggis Ditches Scientology
Over the past few days, a remarkable letter was published in four parts at the blog of Marty Rathbun, a former high-level Scientology official who has left the church and now criticizes Scientology's leader, David Miscavige.
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Long known for his humanitarian efforts and strong support for civil liberties, Haggis says he was stunned when the San Diego branch of Scientology publicly supported Proposition 8, the state amendment that took away marriage rights for California gay couples.
Haggis goes on to list other factors -- he was shocked when Davis claimed in an interview with John Roberts on CNN that Scientology did not support the practice of "disconnection." Haggis knew that Davis was lying. He himself was asked to "disconnect" from the parents of his wife, Deborah Rennard, who had left Scientology.
Haggis also says he read the recent St. Petersburg Times series, quoting recent high-level Scientology defectors like Rathbun, who claimed that Miscavige physically abuses church members. In response, Davis attacked the people who spoke to the Times by using material that was obviously gathered in confidential church services -- a form of retaliation called "fair game" that Scientology has long been known for, but that the church publicly claims it doesn't do.
OK, cheers to Haggis for finding the moral courage to make this statement, to call on the church's leadership to stop the bullshit, et cetera.
But think about this: for 35 years this guy was a member of a church which believes that we're all the descendants/reincarnations of aliens who came here millions of years ago in DC-8s and died when a hydrogen bomb was exploded in the volcano where we lived. Or something along those lines which is equally insane. He was able to swallow that, yet chokes on the idea that the church is homophobic?
Or, look at it another way: he was willing to go along with their bullshit requirements and commands, including watching his own family suffer from "disconnection," for 35 years, but the leader of the church being wishy-washy on responding to his queries about a political question tips the balance and pushes him to resign. Huh?
Well, I suppose whatever it takes to wake people up. But really.
Jim Downey
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Religious beliefs are mostly
Religious beliefs are mostly about values, even when they're presented as facts, so it's no surprise that his rejection was motivated by a value issue rather than a factual issue; you may think opposition to gay marriage is less obviously stupid than belief in aliens, but the belief in aliens isn't really about the aliens. Not sure why other unethical behavior by the church didn't get to him, but perhaps he thought it was all in a good cause until the homophobia undermined his belief in the goodness of the cause in question.
I admit that the believers themselves would be unlikely to tell you that the alien stories aren't really about aliens. Still, someone who believed in aliens in a perfectly straightforward, literal way would be devoting a lot more energy to trying to learn about the aliens; at least in this aspect of their lives, these people just aren't interested in straightforward, literal truths. Similar comments apply to, e.g., religious fundamentalists and history.
I tend to follow the diagnosis of this phenomenon suggested by Rudolf Carnap in "Overcoming Metaphysics through the Logical Analysis of Language"; disguising value claims as literal truths means they can't be criticized as values, since it's pretended that that's not what they are. At the same time, believers are also able to disregard criticism of the claims as literal truths. Since they really aren't that, the truth criticisms miss the point, and further since the claims are really about values, any critics of the truth claims are revealing that they have corrupt values and can be ignored on that basis.