GOD or DOG… You Decide

A new book recently came across my desk, called Dogspell: The Gospel According to Dog.  At first I thought maybe Dogspell was a new version of the musical Godspell, but using barking dogs — kind of like the Christmas music CDs put out by “Jingle Dogs” or the even more annoying “Jingle Cats” music CDs, where a group of cats meow out Christmas classics like “Here Comes Santa Claws” or “Meowy Christmas.” 

As it turns out Dogspell is a book that wants to guide Christians to a better understanding their relationship with God.  According to the publisher, the author “Uses [the] metaphor of dog’s unconditional devotion to its human and the joy it finds in [this] relationship….”

This idea is disturbing in so many ways:

Can this be the spiritual goal of most Christians — to view the universe on all-fours while sniffing the crotch of God?  And think of all the theological questions it raises.  Is it appropriate to hump God’s leg only on Sundays?  Or Saturdays?  Or should this be a daily ritual?

And then there is the question of Evil.  How can we address the fact that I have fleas?  Why doesn’t God do something about this?  Get me a flea-collar!  Buy some flea powder!  Please, God, do something to clean up all these horrible problems in the world.

I love my neighbor.  So can I ask God to send the city’s Mobile Spaying Unit to my neighbor’s house and “fix” them all?  (Just my idea for cleaning up the local gene pool.)

What if it turns out that my God is violent and brutal, and he beats the hell out of me with a 2x4 and sells me out to dogfights, like Michael Vick?  Am I still expected to lick his hand?

Why is it that people look up to the sky, searching for some invisible master, and abase themselves like dumb animals?

What is it about this idea that makes me want to lie down and lick my own ass, just to get the taste of this out of my mouth?  Oops, I can’t reach.  A little help here!

The fact is that The Religious never cease to amaze.  Sometimes their weird ideas are pretty funny.  Other times their violence and senseless bigotry are downright shocking.  From female circumcision to bombing abortion clinics, these people are seriously disturbed.  Maybe they are  mainly trying to work out their own serious emotional problems: a lack of love at an early age? overwhelming feelings of worthlessness? These lead them to accept crazy ideas.  

And these ideas are truly crazy.  Not eating fish on Friday.  Not using birth control.  Praying with candles and statues, and wishing for miracles.  Then they accept whatever crazy shit the preacher tells them, and reject the evidence of their own eyes.  

I know of a Baptist preacher in our town (pop. 18,000) who has a congregation of only 25 people.  Every Sunday (and Wednesday and Friday) he subjects them to 2 hours of yelling and personal abuse (I am *not* exaggerating).  Why do they put up with this jerk!  And worse yet, a few months ago he emptied the church bank account and left town.  And some church members still want him to come back!  How sick is that?

People can be convinced to believe almost anything.  The enormous growth of the Mormon Church in the last century proves, beyond a reasonable doubt, that people can be made to believe almost anything, no matter how goofy it is.  The Church of Scientology is equally crazy.  And all these religions are, almost without exception, violent and cruel to non-believers.  So why do people still fall into the trap of religious belief?

Christian Ideals

Christianity — or any religion for that matter — is not just the sum of what members think and do.  Religion is the product of an idealized notion of how the universe works.  We can talk all we want to about Liturgies, Prayers, Devotions, and Charities, but these are just the end product of a concept.  People are devoted to their religions — each one has a specific set of beliefs — and they are willing to make major sacrifices and devote a significant part of their personal resources to supporting this concept.  And they do this even when the leaders of the church turn out to be abusive thugs, thieves and even child-molesters.  For many of The Religious, the real world is a separate category kept in a separate mental box, and their life experiences do not connect with The Belief, which is often maintained and upheld in spite of the evidence.

For example, on a daily basis ministers are found stealing church funds, seducing sons and daughters, manipulating elderly members into giving their life savings to the church, etc, etc, etc.  But rarely are these criminals caught and punished by the church.  Often it is the intervention of others — meaning non-believers or believers in some other church — who investigate and prosecute criminal acts.  I know of several cases where a local minister was caught stealing from the church.  In some cases the church asks for the money to be returned, but the thief is never prosecuted — mainly because that would reflect badly on the idealized notion of Christianity.  

Most church members are willing to “forgive and forget” rather than create a public scandal.  The usual excuse is that they do not want to create a “stumbling block” for new recruits — those who are still “weak” in their belief and have a low level of commitment to the faith.  Most congregations are willing to take the long view: that it is better to suck in a batch of new recruits (and their money) rather than punish wrongdoing in the church and risk losing membership.  Some churches will put up with ministers who exhibit truly bizarre behavior: drug addiction, addiction to pornography, alcoholism.  The Catholic Church protected many child molesters for decades, and they even defended them from criminal investigations. 

And still these “men of God” still demand to be admired and respected? And they will pout if you don't.

Are Christians Moral?

Part of the belief in Christianity is the belief that any “religion” is better than atheism.  Even a moderate form of secularized religion is to be preferred over atheism.  After all, a secularist might not oppose the recruiting efforts of churches.  The secularist might also be willing to ignore even blatant corruption in the church because of a general respect for Religion and The Religious.  This certainly was the attitude of Ben Franklin.  He thought that church was a waste of a Sunday, but at the same time Franklin contributed money to many churches and thought that religion was important to maintaining a moral and “honest” society.  Franklin believed that religion was very good — for his neighbors.

The scientific evidence, however, suggests just the opposite.  Every study done on this topic, comparing the Atheists with The Religious, suggests that Atheists are more moral and ethical.  The statistical evidence is clear.  Prisons are full of Christians and Muslims, but there are only a tiny number of atheists, compared with the general population.  Atheists are also better educated and more successful in their careers. 

At the same time, there are news stories coming out almost daily about religious pedophiles, ministers who steal from the church funds, and church youth leaders who seduce the teens who are put in their care.  Although teenage pregnancy is a pervasive problem in our society, religious schools are especially fertile ground for this problem.  At our local parochial school, the girl who is elected senior Prom Queen is typically selected from among the one or two senior cheerleaders who aren’t “showing” yet.  The children of The Religious have higher rates of venereal disease and higher rates of out-of-wedlock pregnancy.  They also tend to be poorly educated and caught in dead-end jobs.

Yet the myth persists that The Religious are better or more moral than atheists or secular folk.  This is probably a case where recruiting new members and religious self-promotion (vitally necessary to any religion) has led the public to form a questionable opinion.  That is, because the churches are always talking about morality and the breakdown of ethics in society, people wrongly believe that The Religious are moral.  
  

On the contrary, The Religious almost always support the appearance of morality over the substance.  I’ve known many Christian businessmen who are good at “talking up” the idea of religion and morality, but I can’t think of one I would trust to hold my wallet.  The Religious often “talk a good game” but are generally more dishonest than you might imagine.  A businessman who touts his religion is, like the religious politicians, simply using his phony image to deceive his next victim.  Religion is often used as a “front” to hide the pervasive corruption.  Think of The Sopranos.

Atheist Politicians?

One difference between America and other countries is that America was founded, in part, as a religious nation.  Just as many settlers came here for economic opportunities, there were many settlers who came here to establish religious societies.  And whatever the extent of their success or failure it is still largely assumed by a significant part of the population that the United States has a particular religious standing, irrespective of the First Amendment.  Politicians — even the deist sort — have played that note heavily, usually to promote their own agenda.  Whether it was Abraham Lincoln working to end slavery or George W. Bush trying to incite us to smite the Muslim terrorists, they knew that a religious appeal would be effective in getting the public to accept a difficult premise.  And The Religious can be trusted to rush blindly into whatever situation presents itself, even into risking their own lives.  After all, the promise of a future life in Heaven is a strong incentive to patriotism.  At the same time, it is worth noting that George W. Bush has managed to create the persona of a good “born again” Christian leader and maintains that image, in spite of the fact that he is responsible for the deaths of many thousands of innocent Americans and Iraqis.

Today there are a number of strong associations between politics and religion.  In several states it is necessary to be a Roman Catholic to get elected to office.  In other states it is important to be a Evangelical, or perhaps even a Mormon.  Atheists rarely get elected to high office, and when they do — as, for example, when Jesse Ventura became governor of Minnesota — it is loudly noted by the media.  The idea that The Religious are better leaders or more ethical is a fantasy that is often sold to the public, and they almost always bite.

Psychopath vs Sociopath

Over the years, Psychologists have been unclear about what a psychopath is, as opposed to a sociopath; and psychologists have often used the two terms interchangeably.  I would prefer to define the two words—psychopath and sociopath—by saying that the “sociopath” is a person who is capable of understanding morality and who is able to relate, at least superficially, to others in terms of sympathy, friendship, loyalty, etc.  It is just that this person, the sociopath, is also capable of turning off these feelings—especially while under stress or the influence of drugs and alcohol—and they can act for brief periods of time in a way that is more characteristic of the psychopath. 

The ability to turn these feelings off and then on again is a clear evolutionary advantage, especially as the human population has expanded and people have become much more mobile, and immigration has become much more fluid. The actual number of sociopathic personalities in society has been estimated with both very high and very low numbers, but I would suspect that estimates of, perhaps as much as 10% of the population, would not be out of line with the reality that many of us see, day to day, and especially in larger cities.

In a complex and fluid society, the sociopath is perfectly adapted to camouflage himself (or herself) with the appearance of a traditional morality, often taking on as his disguise and identifying himself as a member of a conservative religion. Traditional morality is much more easy for the sociopath to simulate—with its rigid and very clearly defined distinctions between right and wrong—than a more fluid liberal morality full of sepia and shades of gray and blends of hard-to-distinguish pastel colors.  For the sociopath, a conservative persona is much easier to create and maintain. He can blend into the background. But, as always, when the sociopath senses a clear advantage in tossing aside this disguise, he can do so, and then act as a human predator.   

This is why so many child molesters have used the Catholic Church as a screen for their predatory activities, there is fairly clear evidence that the Catholic priesthood and Protestant clergy probably have a larger percentage of sociopaths than the overall population. When we find that a priest or minister is, in reality, a child molester, we should be no more surprised than we discover that the women’s basketball coach is a lesbian. The lesbian is probably not a sexual predator, but that doesn’t mean she can’t “window shop.” The men’s basketball coach is probably gay and doing the same thing. People are always drawn to the things they desire. Like the Boy Scout leader….