I'm A Believer
Daniel Dennett has written about clergy who no longer believe in their religion but don't leave their position (or is it calling?). It's no surprise they exist--people change their beliefs, and you'd figure those who think about them all the time are prime candidates for this change.
The question is what to do next? You still think you're doing good, and you're helping others through the means of this religion. Is it a requirement you believe yourself? I'd expect most religious leaders have at least some problem with certain dogma somewhere--do you have to believe every jot and tittle that the authorities want you to believe, or otherwise have to quit your position? Aren't you given any leeway to interpret things as you see best? And if that's true, how far can you go?
posted by LAGuy @ 12:21 AM
3 Comments:
I don't have much respect for these folks. Sure, there might be an individual case where Pastor So-and-So realizes he doesn't believe in God, but if he quits his job his young child with leukemia will lose his health care. Maybe if Pastor So-and-So has a sudden attack of doubts in the middle of a conversation with a man on a ledge, he might wait until he talks the guy down from the ledge before expressing his doubts.
But that's hardly the common scenario. How would any American -- left or right or center -- feel about a president who concluded that a certain war was morally wrong and sure to turn into a travesty, but launched the war for personal gain? If Rush Limbaugh is a closet socialist or Harry Reid is a closet capitalist, and yet to further their careers they have chosen to push America in a direction that they themselves honestly believe is disastrous, should we have sympathy for them?
The same applies, in my opinion, to atheist clergy (and New Atheist bestselling-authors who secretly believe in God, if they exist).
From time to time, a Catholic bishop retires at age 75 or 80, and then a year later gives an interview with a newspaper where he reveals that he has long rejected the Church's teachings regarding women's ordination, or some sexual issue, or whatever. At this point, the liberal Catholic press praise him for his "courage". Leaving aside the merits of the issues, how is it courageous to silently take a paycheck from an organization you oppose for five decades, and then once you are safely living off your retirement, voice your true views?
Albert Schweitzer, on the other hand, is a true hero. He spent a decade as a Lutheran theologian, biblical scholar, and deacon studying the New Testament. Finally he came to the conclusion that Jesus was not God and in fact went to his death believing that the world was going to end imminently. Schweitzer drew the correct conclusion from this premise: it's a waste of time to follow this Jesus guy. So he abandoned theology and focused on doing good through medicine, working to cure diseases in Africa.
I myself am a Christian and don't agree with Schweitzer's historical and theological conclusions. But I respect his consistency. And he proves that someone can drop out of the clergy and still do plenty of good! (Which shouldn't really need proving...)
But is it so wrong to do good even if you do it through a religion you don't believe in. You may fool people into believing you believe, but what do you care about that? It's not your religion, so let people believe what they want. What if you were religious and realized you could do better work helping people if you pretended you were an atheist. Would it be so awful if you did what helped others the most?
Well doesn't it get to the nature of belief. If you believe in all the supernatural claims of a religion, then the belief in the central part of belonging to a religion. If you don't believe in the otherworldliness, it doesn't seem so important to mouth the the tenets while doing "good."
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