The Baffling Religion/Action Compatibility Question
Being a religious person in a highly secular world, I often get asked candid questions about religion, and it is always my pleasure to answer them.
The one that always baffles me, though, is, “How can you be a Christian and do X?,” where X is some naughty thing. Sometimes the intent is to level a charge of hypocrisy, but very often the question is asked genuinely.
(Even our own Alan asked me a question in this vein, although he did it with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek.)
To have a religion is to hold a belief about metaphysics. Either you believe that Allah is God and Muhammad is his Prophet or you don’t. If you do, and you eat pork, this will not make Muhammad more, or less, the Prophet. The two things aren’t related.
Now, of course, the question “Why do you, as a X, do Y?” makes sense. But in the main, this is not the question people ask. The question people ask is “How can you be a X, and do Y?,” and in most cases they really mean it that way. The implication, of course, is that religious belief is not really a belief but a lifestyle choice.
It’s particularly baffling when the question is posed to a Christian, since the whole premise of the religion is that people are sinners in need of redemption. For non-Christians, the question is more like “How can you drive a car and like the color blue?” (non-sensical), and for Christians the question is more like “How can you drive if you have a car?” (isn’t that the whole point?).
NB: I have cross-posted this to my personal blog, PEG 2.0 , where I have been writing about theology. You’re welcome to suggest topics in the comments you’d like me to answer questions about.
I don’t know that the question is always off-base. In this case, it probably is (‘probably’ because I don’t know just how truly perverted you really are :)
But there’s a difference between joking about sex and doing a mortal sin involving sex. And, in theory, a Christian who expresses love as he should won’t be doing mortal sins.
Maybe the question should be formulated more along the lines of “How can you be a GOOD Christian and do X?” Jesus, after all, did say, “Go and sin no more.” So everyone may be sinners and need redemption, but there’s a difference between not considering something a sin and sinning, repenting and trying to get it right the next time.
Something I’d be interested to hear from you is how the surrounding culture comes into play. Being an atheist in most of the U.S. is counter-cultural. Being a Catholic in 21st century France is also counter-cultural (at least if you get out of a certain milieu). And yet in both cases, I think there’s an assumption that “good Christians” don’t act in a certain way…on a slightly related note, I’m also curious to hear your thoughts on “La vie est un long fleuve tranquille”.
— Chris · Aug 19, 12:07 PM · #
I think what they’re really asking is “if you believe X, and X is really true, how come it hasn’t had a transformative effect on your life, so much so that you no longer do Y?”
This question especially makes sense because Christianity claims to have a transformative effect on the lives of those who accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
— jamie · Aug 19, 01:50 PM · #
I don’t understand why you think being “religious in a secular world” is somehow noteworthy or onerous. (You don’t actually say that it is, but you imply that it’s a bit of a burden for you.) Secularism exists precisely so that people can be religious if they want, in precisely the way that they want. It’s really easy for people in a religious mainstream – say, Christianity in the West – to compare a secular society to one where their own religion is the dominant cultural force, but maybe you’d like to stop and think for a minute what it was/is like to be a Catholic in official Protestant societies (or Islamic ones) and thank your lucky stars, or your God, that enough people were able to see past their own personal faith long enough to create the secular society that allows you the space for whatever faith you think is best.
The relentless hostility of the conservative faithful to secularism is something I’ve never entirely understood, except perhaps as of a piece with their general hostility towards personal freedom.
— Ch3t · Aug 19, 02:58 PM · #
Chris:
Yes, but I really don’t think that’s how most people ask the question, at least that I’ve encountered. (Also, I don’t think the category “good Christian” makes sense.)
I think that’s right.
jamie:
Ah, but that’s precisely the thing. Christianity is not a miracle diet. It is not a thing that magically turns you into a goody two shoes. Religion does have a transformative effect on people (it seems pretty hard to argue otherwise), but that transformative effect doesn’t work in the way that you suddenly stop wanting cake or sex or being an asshole or whatever.
Ch3t:
You seem to be having a conversation with someone who’s not in the room…
It was not my intent to suggest such a thing. I actually explicitly say the opposite, since I say that I’m happy to answer questions from seculars about my faith.
It is noteworthy in the sense that it explains why I get asked innocent questions about religion (relatively) frequently, which is going to happen more in Paris than, say, rural Kansas.
As to the rest of your comments I can only encourage you to meditate on what nuance there might be between legal and constitutional secularism (which I am a big fan of because, as you note, it protects my and others’ religious freedom), and cultural secularism, which is something completely different.
— PEG · Aug 19, 05:18 PM · #
Of course it is true that religious belief, even sincere religious belief does not end all sins. But I don’t see how you can say that the question of belief and action “aren’t related.”
If you examine what you said about a person who claims to believe that There is no god but Allah and Muhammad (saw) is His prophet. The question isn’t whether a person eating pork affects whether Muhammad (saw) is actually a prophet. In fact, of course, the question of whether Muhammad (saw) is actually a prophet is completely separate from whether a particular person believes this or accepts this. But what is related is the sincerity of a person’s claim to believe in Allah and his prophet to their actions. A person choosing to act against the teachings of a religion certainly does call into question the sincerity of their claim to believe in that religion. To state that one believes in the all-powerful all knowledgeable God who only wants good for you and who will be the judge on the Day of Judgement who has commanded that one not eat pork and then to still go ahead and eat pork is certainly a contradiction that warrants a question.
In fact, along these lines, the Muslim tradition reports the Prophet Muhammad (saw) as saying that the one who steals is not a believer at the time he steals, and the one who commits adultery is not a believer at the time he commits adultery. Of course since we also know that every human sins, this is understood not to mean that one’s belief is completely cancelled out by sins but the perfection of one’s belief or faith (iman) is compromised by (especially major) sins.
I know this is more than anyone is interested in, but the basic point is that while you are right to question the assumption that any one’s behavior will always be in line with their beliefs, it seems to me ridiculous to suggest that the way one acts is “not related” to the question of what one believes.
— Abu Noor Al-Irlandee · Aug 19, 05:33 PM · #
That’s not only having a conversation with someone who’s not in the room, it’s having a conversation in a room on a different planet. Equating secularism with personal freedom is just plain silly, even before one takes into account that the post is abut the occasional disconnect between faith and free action. And of course there are many many examples of pluralistic societies which are not secular (including even some European Christian Democratic states) and of secular societies which do not permit free worship (as China).
— Kieselguhr Kid · Aug 19, 10:52 PM · #
Right, but the rest of this post is your admission that you’re actually not happy at all about it, and there’s at least one kind of question you wish people wouldn’t ask you.
Anyway, it’s of a piece with your rather dim view of the secularism that allows for religious plurality.
Well, the answer is that you’re completely wrong (as usual), and that there is no difference. Culture pressure is be just as stifling as legal pressure, and cultural secularism preserves religious freedom by maintaining polite, informal neutrality on religious issues.
The society where we say “hey, you have your faith and I have mine – no need to argue about it!” is one that is most preserving of individual, personal faith. What it obstructs is cultural hegemony by any one particular faith, and you can only be opposed to that obstruction if you believe, irrationally, that your faith is the one that will have the hegemony. It doesn’t usually shake out like that – there are a lot of hegemonic religions.
It’s worth reminding you, PEG, that the Taliban didn’t need legal or constitutional hegemony to dynamite the Bamiyan Buddhas; their cultural domination of Afghanistan was sufficient. And it certainly wasn’t secularists – legal or cultural. Cultural secularism is something the religious should prize, assuming that their real goal is their stated one: personal freedom of faith and conscience.
— Ch3t · Aug 20, 01:57 AM · #
Says you! Maybe you’d like to take a stab at explaining why? (Hint: China is most definitely not a secular state, and neither was Soviet Russia, presumably your next stupid example.)
— Ch3t · Aug 20, 01:58 AM · #
It’s clear you’re not reading, but — it’s silly because religion can be freely chosen. The worshipping monk or ascetic is in some obvious sense not personally free but is exactly personally free in a political sense; the bounds on them are put there of their own voilition, same as can be done in nonreligious causes. The bounds imposed by religion of certain ethical and social standards are bounds everyone has, only from different sources. Of course, religious observance can be imposed — but so can many nonreligious standards. There’s no obvious relation there; it’s just silly.
China is, in fact, a secular state as IR generally defines them, although there are certainly other forms of state secularism. Those can even be stretched to include, as I mentioned, Christian Democratic states. You’re certainly welcome to have “secular” mean something special known only to you, but, it’s not going to be very useful.
— Kieselguhr Kid · Aug 20, 02:51 AM · #
In general this is unuseful. Chet reads PEG in a way nobody else reads him. PEG then says, no, that’s not hat I was trying to say. Chet comes back and says, no it is, so you’re wrong. He then asserts a bunch of stuff with, as I pointed out, obvious historical counterexamples. One is not left impressed by Chet.
Chet, are you so unable to impress anyone in any medium?
— Kieselguhr Kid · Aug 20, 02:56 AM · #
That’s very interesting. Thanks for your comment.
— PEG · Aug 20, 11:37 AM · #
Heh. Right.
— PEG · Aug 20, 11:40 AM · #
That’s plainly stupid, particularly in highly religious societies. Religion can be chosen but it’s subject to significant constraint; not the least of which is that once you have one, you’re inoculated by a meme that says that all the other religions are bullshit. What are the odds that PEG, for instance, is going to wake up one day and decide to give Islam a try? Next to nothing, I would say. People change denomination fairly frequently, but almost never change their religion.
Indeed, it’s the common practice of religious cultures to punish those who “freely choose” to leave the faith; see the Muslim treatment of Muslim apostates or Christopher Marlowe’s conviction for “atheism”. The society and culture best able to allow people to most freely choose their religion is the secular one, as I’ve explained.
I can only read your words, PEG, not your heart. If you don’t recognize your heart in my reflection of your words then I invite you to learn to communicate more clearly. (And I’m not here to “impress” Kieselguhr Kid, who is an idiot.) Do you think I’m mistaken to construe your general position as being against secularism in society? I’m sure that I can quote you from other posts in support of this.
— Ch3t · Aug 20, 01:28 PM · #
Uncle! There’s no rhetorical tool that beats “repeated assertion of the simply untrue!”
And it is untrue. In the developed world, change of faith — often profound change of faith — isn’t uncommon; in fact it’s common enough that it would be surprising if one doesn’t have (multiple) people in one’s circle of friends who’ve done it. Walk into your local mosque and you’ll almost surely see a white guy there praying. Of course this knowledge can be easily avoided by the simple expedient of avoiding the mosque, in which case because it is unknown it is also untrue, although it seems to me that in that case the twit isn’t the guy on his knees.
In undeveloped countries, conversion is much less common, but that’s sort of a non-point. Yes, you’re almost surely the same religious affiliation as your father. You also almost surely plow the same land and keep the same social circle and have the same general view of the world and probably even married the child of someone close to your parents. Lots of non-religious stuff, as I said, gets pressed on you by your circle. Nothing special about religion.
Nor about secular states — some, like China (ahem), oppress religious practice severely. But modern secular states have also contrived to prevent religious expression in a thousand ways from what you can wear to what you can build — ask Muslims in Switzerland or Scientologists in Canada about religious freedom. One might have an interesting, unique-to-oneself definition of secularism, but meanwhile, back on this planet, among states which actually exist, it ain’t so. Whereas I don’t know that explicitly non-secular states, like, oh, Britain, are tremendously unfriendly to religious liberty relative to the secular ones. To claim otherwise is simply to make your facts up, which I concede is a killin’ approach.
As for what PEG says, it’s certainly possible to write badly so as to mis-express one’s thoughts on a subject. But it’s also possible to read like a cretin, and there’s no writing to that. Now a whole mess of people have read this thing and commented on it and nobody interprets it Chet’s way (indeed, to do so you have to be not only a poor reader, but a bit autistic, since presumably the folks asking PEG personal questions are his friends). The rational conclusion is that Chet has read poorly. Repeatedly, and even when the error is pointed out — which suggests other rational conclusions. Besides, it seems obvious from the whole PEG oeuvre that he rather likes religious liberty — if Chet had found even something that he might take out of context and then throw enough of his feces at to make seem ambiguous on that point, he’d have done so (being a jackass), so, it doesn’t exist.
But all is not lost. In Chet’s case, for example, many charitable and non-governmental organizations exist that work pretty hard to teach one to read and to work with text. Many of these are sectarian of course, but many are not. If he finds the right one, and really woks hard at it, then I think we still live in an opportunity society where the sky’s the limit. He could even go get a degree or something — and then you can really tell folks stuff about stuff you do or don’t know anything about: it’s like a license to make shit up! So it’s really the kind of cretinism that fills me with hope and joy and the awesomeness of modern society, and I think we can all applaud that.
— Kieselguhr Kid · Aug 20, 05:00 PM · #
I don’t have any friends who have done it. Not a single one. Everybody I know was raised Christian, and therefore has flirted between different denominations of Christianity, or none, or atheism (but that specific kind of post-Christian atheism that likes to argue about it. You know, like me.) Not even my friend-of-a-friend who moved from Minnesota to Syria.
It’s just not that common to change faiths. Sorry, but it’s not. Religions wax and wane based on birth rates and immigration. One white guy in a mosque – maybe he’s North African – doesn’t change that.
Look, I hate to keep correcting you on this, but it’s stupid to say that China and the Soviet Union are secular. In what sense is it “secular” to believe that your leader can watch a parade through a painting of himself? In what sense is it “secular” to venerate the head of state? In what sense is it “secular” to treat his writings as scripture? In what sense is it “secular” to reject science because it doesn’t agree with official ideology?
It’s not “secular” when there’s a state religion, whether that’s Maoism or Stalinism. We should be very reticent to label autocratic states run by seminarians and theologians as “secular.” Just because they don’t believe in your god doesn’t mean they don’t demand that you believe they are gods.
Right. You’re the one claiming that Britain isn’t a secular society, but I’m the one making things up.
No, I’ve read the PEG oeuvre, and it’s rather obvious that he doesn’t like religious liberty. Oh, he likes his own just fine. But he would much prefer that people were forced to live like Catholics, at least, rather than follow the (presumably mistaken) dictates of their own consciences and, say, have abortions, use birth control, disagree with the Catholic church about the role of women and their potential ordination. It’s all there, you can click on his name and read it. Don’t take my word for it. (No danger of that, I suspect.)
Hey, you’re right! In fact I earned a degree in just that from a pretty good one. That’s how I know that my reading is essentially correct. But thanks for making the argument from authority for me; it’s so tiresome to have to explain one’s qualifications (and anyway, nobody on the internet knows you’re a dog, right?)
— Ch3t · Aug 20, 08:12 PM · #
This does not just apply to religions, but cultures as well. For examples, the Asian stereotype of being “good at math”. ex. “How can you be Asian, but not good at math?”. Just because someone is Asian, does not mean that they excel at math. Everyone is different. Same here. Just because someone is Christian, does not mean that they cannot do “X”. It’s their life, and their decision.
— richard leung · Aug 22, 07:31 AM · #