1
Finding a Way In

LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this chapter you should be able to

• understand why some people find religion so implausible;
• have a sense of some of the responses that a person of faith might make.

STRUCTURE

• The Social Dimension
• Why Bother with the Christian Worldview?
• Problems
  1. It Looks Like Religion is on the Way Out
  2. Science has Displaced Religion
  3. Metaphysics is Impossible
  4. Agnosticism Makes More Sense
  5. Religion is Horrid and Cruel
  6. Religion Reinforces Patriarchy
  7. Faith is Just a Psychological Projection
• The Next Stage

Much of the world is very religious. Despite all the predictions to the contrary, our world seems to be becoming more religious rather than less. However, as an Englishman living on the east coast of America, I am aware that many students find it difficult to understand a religious worldview. So, in this opening chapter, we shall start by looking at some of the problems that a typical, thoughtful, European or American student might have with religion. Before we get to the doctrines of the Trinity or atonement, we need to understand why the religious discourse matters.

So let us start with the following questions: What makes some people atheists or agnostics and others persons of faith? This is the starting point of this book. Why do some people find it easy to believe while others find it all so incomprehensible?

The Social Dimension

Perhaps because the founders of sociology were skeptical of religion, it is often assumed that the social explanation for religion is evidence in support of atheism. Emile Durkheim's famous critique was one of the first. In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912), Durkheim argued that religion provides a socializing force. It brings people together. He establishes his argument by examining "primitive" forms of religion. However, Durkheim has no interest in simply describing the past; instead he visits the past with a view to establishing the truth about the nature of religion for the present. The central claim of the book, Durkheim explains, "is that religion is something eminently social. Religious representations are collective representations which express collective realities; the rites are a manner of acting which take rise in the midst of the assembled groups and which are destined to excite, maintain or recreate certain mental states in these groups."1 As a result, religion and morality become closely connected. Religion is society's way of imposing certain shared moral values; this, Durkheim thought, explains why moral values seem to have a transcendent feel.

Box 1 Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)

On April 15, 1858 Emile Durkheim was born of Jewish parents in Épinal, Lorraine, in France. Early on he was recognized as exceptionally gifted. And it was not surprising that he was admitted and flourished at the École Normale Supérieure (the premier university in Paris). In 1882, he became a philosophy teacher. In 1887, he moved to Bordeaux, where he started to articulate a distinctive approach to the social sciences. And in 1913 he moved to Paris. During the First World War, he assisted with the war effort; and he also had to cope with the tragic loss of his son André, who died in 1916. Plagued by illness throughout his life and devastated by the death of his son, he died on November 15, 1917.

Whether or not Durkheim is right (and he is probably right about much), he offered an explanation for religion that recognized the power of our "socialization" to account for our worldview. Atheists and agnostics are sometimes tempted to dismiss a person's religious beliefs as "simply a result of their upbringing." This approach to religion has its roots in Durkheim's sociology.

The truth, however, is that perhaps we are all "indoctrinated." Many agnostics and atheists grew up in an agnostic and atheist environment: as children they never learned the discourse of faith. For the truth is that faith is learned. Much like language, it becomes part of the furniture of your mind. In the same way that a particular language is learned in a home, so is a particular faith discourse. In the same way that love of country is "instilled," so is love of God.

This was a key insight of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein is a complex thinker, and disagreements about the interpretation of his work abound. However, Wittgenstein recognized that there are many different ways in which language operates. Language is used in a variety of different ways, with different "rules" governing the particular discourse (or language-game). Subsequent commentators on Wittgenstein, for example, D.Z. Phillips, have suggested that different communities use language in different ways.2 Atheists operate within one community and use language in one way while believers operate within a different community and use language in a different way.

Box 2 Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)

In Vienna, Austria, Wittgenstein was born on April 26, 1889. He was baptized and buried a Roman Catholic, although he was very sensitive to his Jewish heritage (his father's parents had converted from Judaism to Protestantism). Wittgenstein's academic interests started in mechanical engineering and then moved into aeronautics. It was his love of mathematics that provoked his interest in philosophy. He started work with Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) at Cambridge University. His family was extremely rich; in 1913 he inherited a fortune that he then gave away. In 1922 he published his only book, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which he believed solved all the problems of philosophy. Becoming for a short time an elementary school teacher in Austria, he returned to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1929, renouncing his earlier work and determined to revisit the primary issues. The mature Wittgenstein was published after his death in Philosophical Investigations. He died in April 1951.

So religion might well be a result of "social conditioning," but the point is that everything is. The agnostic and atheist lack of awe is equally a result of social conditioning. The fact that we have all been indoctrinated does not mean that we cannot be rationally reflective. There are still good reasons for believing. There are better and worse forms of indoctrination.

At this point, the reader might object, "But if this is true, if we are all socially determined, then how do we explain 'conversions'? How does one explain a conversion from faith to atheism (perhaps following the tragic death of a relative) or from Christianity to Islam or from atheism to faith?"

At this juncture, it is also necessary to introduce "reason." As children, we learn from our parents; we learn a language, a set of values, and a religion. As we encounter different languages, values, and religions, we start to interrogate the worldview given to us by our parents. We ask questions about difference and the reasons for the differences. Language differences we cope with fairly easily; but differences of value and religion are much harder to handle. It is important to use our capacity to think and reason in these difficult areas. And when it comes to religious disagreements, we should use our minds to evaluate which religion makes more sense of the complexity of our experience. Naturally, since each person has been shaped by a multitude of different factors, the weighing by reason of the multitude of different factors (some of which are very particular to an individual's journey) will produce different results. So when it comes to "conversion," reason often meets social conditioning in interesting ways. Social conditioning remains significant. In the same way a person can grow up thinking in one language, so it is possible for a person to learn a second language and start thinking in that one instead. Learning a second language is difficult. Ideally you must live and submerge yourself in a different culture. But many people manage to do this and as a result start to think differently. What is true in language is also true in religion. Atheists become Christians and Christians become atheists because of the company they choose. The choice of company creates a challenge to the received worldview of their youth. As a person rationally reflects on two different worldviews, he or she makes a choice.

So a key question is what sort of group do we decide to mix with? We all come to the conversation with a certain givenness: my parents introduced me to faith. But as we grow older, so we decide to select our own conversation partners. The choice of conversation partner is crucial. So on a religious level: if I opt to find a group of Pentecostals then, it is likely, I shall slowly become a Pentecostal; if I opt for a group of Roman Catholics, then I might become a Catholic, and so on. On a political level, if I gravitate towards a group of white supremacists, then there is a danger I shall slowly become racist. However, if I opt to read, watch, and gravitate towards people sympathetic to Michael Moore, then it is likely I shall become a liberal. It is at the point of deciding who we are going to let influence us that we have...