Religion and Wellbeing

INTRODUCTION

This essay is about religion, specifically personal reflections about apparent connections between religion and wellbeing.

Many people are uncomfortable discussing religion, as well as politics and sex. I find all three of interest and too important to ignore. In a free society, respectful conversation about all topics seems appropriate, including religion, politics, and sex.



Such openness contributes to a better understanding and appreciation of differences and similarities, and complements our quests for truths, as best we can approach such. In this, I'm in good company. The saintly and lovable Mr. (Fred) Rogers: Anything that's human is mentionable, and anything mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone.

Religion is a key factor affecting how many people conduct themselves. Whether in throes to religion or skeptical of all of them, we have good reasons to be aware of and responsive to public policies and other developments related to religion.

Since the AWR exists to promote wellbeing by encouraging individual creativity in reframing old problems, spurring reflection, creating new knowledge and seeking to better the world for everyone, this is a topic that must not be avoided.

It seems a prefatory overview of my own experience with religion seems in order.

THE EARLY YEARS: GROWING UP CATHOLIC

I am not religious, as some readers might have suspected. I came into the world an agnostic, but my parents declared that I, like them, was a Roman Catholic. Quite a coincidence. While still an infant without a clue about anything at four days of age, I was given an exorcism (i.e., baptism), which successfully removed my first sin, which in time would be followed by many more sins, none original.

I attended Catholic elementary and high schools. Like other children declared Catholic, this was the norm. Catholic education where I grew up in Southwest Philadelphia was not effective. How could they lose my allegiance, given a dozen years of daily immersion in the faith? (A Pew report in 2011 put the opt-out rate of those born and raised Catholic at just over ten percent.) Rather than losing ten percent, it should be a wonderment that all of us little sinners do not grow up to be priests or nuns! Think of it - immersion from first grade through high school, inundated with masses, daily hour-long Catholic religion classes, processions to altars to swallow Jesus (communion), multiple prayers memorized, songs sung and answers are given in advance to test questions in the Catechism. To this day I well recall the first three Catechism questions which, after a few hours of dutiful study, I would unerringly repeat correctly every time.

Here are the questions along with the correct answers:

Who made you? God.

What else did God make? God made all things.

Why did God make you and all things? For his glory.

Most freethinkers today seem to have had similar Catholic or other cultist-religious backgrounds. With so much time to work on us, so much unchallenged propaganda spread over decades of daily reinforcement, what accounts for the loss of so many little believers when they grow up? Perhaps Anne Nichol Gaylor, co-founder of FFRF, identified the facts that Catholic indoctrination can't overcome:

There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell.

There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and

the superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.

I don't remember the words of prayers we memorized, but the basic theme of all of the prayers was captured in Monty Python's, The Meaning of Life:

Oh Lord,

Oh, you are so big!

So absolutely huge!

Gosh, we're all impressed down here I can tell you.

Forgive us oh Lord, for this our dreadful toting.

But you're so strong and, well, just so super!

The bulk of my Catholic education is a bit of a blur due to the passage of time and the boring, unpersuasive nature of classes and masses, processions, rituals, formations, litanies, responsive readings and so on.

My mother and relatives on her side were Irish Catholics. My dad was a nominal Catholic (raised Methodist, he converted to please my mom -- and to promote goodwill with his new relatives). He went along to get along -- he wasn't big on the doctrine but he did enjoy socializing. The inter-faith marriage at that time created a rift on the order of the Continental Divide between my relatives on both sides. Dad's Methodists were as attached to their Protestant sect as the mother's clan was to Catholicism. In the 1930s and 40s in Philadelphia, and as far back as the 16th century in Europe, Catholics and Protestants had relations that could charitably be described as frothy. So it was with the two sides of my extended family. My Irish Catholic maternal aunts, uncles and cousins wanted no part of my dad's marital in-laws, and dad's tribe desired even less interaction with my mother's.

Mom's youngest brother, my favorite uncle named Raymond, wasn't so popular, either. He divorced his first wife, or vice-versa. Being divorced in that era rendered him something of an outcast amongst the clan.

In any event, visits to dad's two brothers and their broods, and to my beloved Uncle Raymond, were like Clinton's version of abortion - safe, legal and rare. Especially rare - and then only under cover of darkness after ensuring that we weren't being followed.

Before I was ten or so, I dutifully believed whatever I was told by the nuns, even declarations that my non-Catholic friends would all burn in hell. However, I never held that against them and played with whomever I liked. The nuns and priests endlessly reminded us that the Catholic religion was the one true religion and those not of the faith were doomed to a dreadful fate - a sentence of eternal torture meted out by a loving god.

By fourth grade, my eventual slide from Catholicism was underway, first by skipping confessions and masses, eschewing prayers and questioning perfectly plausible miracle stories featuring an ark, a whale, the parting of seas, the production of loaves and fishes out of thin air and the mother of all mothers plucked from the rib of her boyfriend. These derelictions and apostasies were followed by a rich variety of additional blasphemies and attendant mortal sins involving impure thoughts and deeds.

By age thirteen, I was a fallen-away Catholic or risen freethinker -- take your pick.

Given the theme of the essay, I should add that I believe my early religious education did not promote reason, exuberance or liberty. The Catholic religion of my youth was not big on these three dimensions of REAL wellness. An attractive alternative approach to education might have been gained at a summer camp run by Camp Quest, the vision of which is a world in which children grow up exploring, thinking independently, connecting with their communities and acting to make the most of life for themselves and others.

However, I did enjoy ample opportunities for athleticism, for which I'm grateful.

RELIGION AND WELLBEING

There are 4,200 different religions extant on Earth at present, and far more have died out over time. One commonality all share is different ideas about god and what he/she/it wants.

A key question might be - how many religions can be true? If the Catholics are right about matters ecclesiastical in nature (and the Pope is, after all, said (by Catholics) to be infallible on doctrine), it logically follows that other religions are fake news. If the Catholic Church is the one true church, and that's what I was told, does this not mean that something like 99.999 percent of all religions past and present is buncombe (or bunkum), fallacious, spurious, apocryphal, delusive, sophistical or, dare I say it, false?

Worse, according to religion as I learned it, all who followed (erroneous) claims of untrue religions who died off over the past 200,000 years of humanity are burning in hell -- and will continue to do so forevermore. Folks still around lacking the benefit of the one true faith will fry soon enough, unless of course, like my dad, they convert.

On the other hand, what if the Catholics are deluded? What if Catholicism is not the one true religion and the popes are just real-life Wizards of Oz, though pontiffs have not done much for brains, for courage and hearts of the faithful. How then can seekers of the one true church pick the right one? Furthermore, perish the thought, what if they're all just made up, along with devils and angels? What if there's no heaven above or hell below? What if, holy Darwin, there is only our natural world? Whatever will compel, motivate or otherwise serve to make us do good, to behave, to be nice to each other and to adopt and respect common decencies? Can we be good without one or more gods? (Secularists find this question ludicrous, for good reasons.)

So, getting back to the point of the essay, namely, can believing what you pretty much suspect ain't so (paraphrasing Mark Twain here) possibly be good for you? Are religion and wellbeing good neighbors?

Gee, I don't know. Can superstition be good for you? Does it boost reason, exuberance, mental freedom, and other liberties? I'm at a loss to see how given my early years with religion. On the other hand, there is no denying that religions still play a valued role for most people on Earth. If religion gives meaning, provides hope and comfort, promotes good work and serves other desirable roles, why would anyone object, even if it's all an ultimate mirage, which it may or may not be? (Nobody knows, of course. You and I are as informed about what happens to our souls or consciousness after death as all the priests and popes, shamans, ministers and ayatollahs and holy men and women who ever lived, which is absolutely nothing.)

Like everything about religion, one has to accept what she wants to believe in faith, as revealed truths, though there's no way to seriously examine the source, nature or reliability of such claims for veracity.

I would have no concern whatsoever about religion if believers believed what they like but refrained from inserting their creeds and dogmas, their holy books, statues, crosses, commandments, slogans (e.g., In God we trust, so help me God, God bless America, under God, and so on ad infinitum) on public lands, public schools, government functions, and other non-religious venues. We are not a Christian nation - stop insisting otherwise - read the Constitution.

The other day, Energy Secretary and former Texas governor Rick Perry told President Trump that he was chosen president by God! (Trump already knew this, having proclaimed it more than once.) It might be a good thing that relatively few Christians take Rick Perry seriously. Who would want to worship a God who saddled our nation with Donald Trump?

Politicians, especially Republicans but many Democrats, as well, make a habit of affirming their religiosity in public. Some (e.g., V.P. Pence, Secretary Pompeo, Attorney General Barr) go way overboard, even to the embarrassment of many Christians. The following commentary from FFRF's attorney Andrew L. Seidel on the matter identifies why Perry's remark is not just jejune but also un-American, even unpatriotic:

Perry doesn't just believe that the creator of space, time, matter and everything chose Trump, he also believes that omniscient being chosen, Rick Perry. After all, Perry is in the presidential line of succession and was the Texas governor, as well. What he lacks in humility, Perry makes up for in zeal - not for the people he serves, but for the god he believes anointed him. He has regularly abused public offices to promote his religion... he used state resources to fight a legal battle to keep a Ten Commandments monument at the Texas Capitol.

The monument begins, 'I AM the LORD thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before.' It would be hard to pen a sentiment more at odds with America's cherished freedom of religion than that. Perry consistently tried to have Texas public schools teach his particular brand of creationism. He even claimed, 'In Texas, we teach both creationism and evolution," which is illegal. When a drought-ridden Texas caught fire in 2011, Perry organized an entire 'day of fasting and prayer, telling people to pray to his god over Easter weekend. (The prayers failed.)

'Fox & Friends' and the Christian Nationalists are fawning over Perry's comments. But the ideas that Perry espoused stand opposed to America's founding ideals and values. The Christian Nationalism Rick Perry proclaimed is distinctly un-American.

Politicians like Rick Perry and Trump's theocrats bring to mind Jean de La Bruyere's observation (1688): To what excesses will men not go for the sake of a religion in which they believe so little and which they practice so imperfectly!

A WALL OF SEPARATION: THE THREAT OF ENCROACHING THEOCRACY

While running for president in 1960, JFK said, I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no religious body seeks to impose its will, either directly or indirectly, on the general populace. Hear, hear. Just so.