I don’t write about my parent’s religion here very often, but since this weekend marks the 16^th Biennial Jaina Convention, we might as well discuss Jainism.

For those who don’t know, Jainism’s major tenet is non-violence. If you know anything about Jainism, that’s what you know about it. Unfortunately, that one idea seems to negate all the other nonsense Jainism propagates.

Sam Harris wrote about the non-violence aspect of Jainism in The End of Faith (where he argued that even moderate religions were harmful):

A rise of Jain fundamentalism would endanger no one. In fact, the uncontrollable spread of Jainism throughout the world would improve our situation immensely. We would lose more of our crops to pests, perhaps (observant Jains generally will not kill anything, including insects), but we would not find ourselves surrounded by suicidal terrorists or by a civilization that widely condones their actions.

Even Richard Dawkins said as much in a 2007 interview with Terrence McNally:

TM: In other words, if it were just a philosophical belief that had no impact on the world, fine.

RD: Exactly. I don’t think you’ll find many people criticizing any gentle religion, like Jainism.

It’s true — You rarely see criticism of Jainism. But if we’re concerned with spreading the truth instead of religious beliefs, we shouldn’t stay silent. So what’s wrong with Jainism?

A lot. I know because I grew up in the faith and my parents still practice it.

While the “non-violence” aspect is admirable, Jains still believe in plenty of bullshit:

• Jains believe in a never-ending, cyclical time cycle, with phases of “rising” and “falling” happiness. Each phase lasts several thousands of years. This is all fiction, of course.
• Jains believe that they can accumulate and shed karma and this impacts their future lives (reincarnation). There’s no evidence of this.
• Jains support being free of materialism — not because it can be destructive in and of itself, but because it’ll allow you to more easily break free from the cycle of reincarnation. They’re doing a good thing for the wrong reason.
• Jains don’t believe in a god, per se, but they do believe in supernatural beings who have broken free of the reincarnation cycle to attain Nirvana. In fact, there are 24 beings who have done that… and we know their names. We memorized their names as children. Though there’s no evidence any of them ever “attained Nirvana.”
• Jainism encourages an 8-day-long (or worse), unhealthy fasting during the holy time of the year. During the fast, you may only consume water that’s been pre-boiled.
• The Jain rules regarding a vegetarian diet seem like they’re made up on the spot. Eggs are bad, but milk is ok. Potatoes and other food from the ground are bad, but there are exceptions depending on the day. Alcohol is forbidden, but young Jains go to bars all the time. The rules make hypocrisy rampant… but almost unavoidable.

An article profiling a Jain “nun” by Morgan Wilson in the Houston Chronicle shows just how absurd the faith can be:

“There are plenty of difference between Hinduism and Jainism; the biggest being the gods” said [Jainesh Mehta (no relation), vice president of the Jain Vishva Bharati-Preksha Meditation Center]. “Essentially, we don’t believe in the same things; we share eight demi-gods with Hinduism but even then we don’t worship them like a Hindu would. But we do have similar faith traits, that being giving up world materials to achieve Nirvana.”

…

“The karma you accumulate in this life and previous lifetimes will determine your condition for your next lifetime,” Mehta said. “We associate karma to be like a black cloud. The more karma you have the more ignorant you are; the less karma you have the more aware you’ve become.”

Demi-gods, nirvana, “next lifetime,” karma? Those beliefs sound like something out of Scientology. But Jains take them very seriously.

The funny thing is that so many Jains go into scientific fields, and yet, I never hear Jains say this stuff is untrue. They find a way to compartmentalize it and ignore it. When you ask them what they believe, they’ll say “Non-violence”… but they won’t mention the several levels of Hell and multiple levels of Heaven.

They’ll do research in a lab one day, and then sing a chant praising prophets, saints, and “liberated souls” the next, without ever realizing the two worlds ought to be colliding. (I sang that particular mantra every day growing up. Can you imagine how I felt when I finally figured out what it actually meant?)

As far as religions go, Jainism isn’t the worst one you’ll find. But there are plenty of lies that it spreads that we need to call out. Young Jains should be concerned with the truth and they ought to know that the religious leaders in the temple are trying to lead them away from it — as most religious leaders everywhere do. The fact that even the most outspoken atheists put on kid gloves when dealing with it is upsetting.

It’s always nice to see a religion that advocates kindness and respect, but that shouldn’t make it immune from criticism when it’s warranted. Jains are very bad at being self-critical, and it has plenty of beliefs that are untrue. I’d love to see a Jain organization, or blogger, or adherent offer up the evidence for their supernatural beliefs because I’m convinced there is none.

…

Note to my parents (who’ll probably never see this, anyway):

This is why I never had a desire for you to set me up with a “nice Jain girl.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah, everyone else has had a go at it, so I might as well jump in, right?

Here’s the story so far, from what I can gather.

1) Female 1 says she is tired and wants to go to bed. It’s 4:00a.

2) Unknown Male approaches Female 1 in the elevator and asks her if he’d like to come to her room. (Guys, that’s creepy. Don’t do that. No matter what you think, you’re never going to be suave enough to pull that off. If you wanted to talk to Female 1, you had several hours to do it and now she’s going to bed. Game over. I don’t care if you just wanted coffee. That’s irrelevant.)

3) Female 1 says no and then goes to her room.

…

That should be the end of the story. We all learn a lesson in What Not To Say To a Tired Woman at 4:00a and we move on.

But of course that’s not the end of the story.

…

4) Female 1 makes a video in which she mentions the situation.

5) Female 2 responds to the video saying that situation doesn’t sound as bad as Female 1 made it out to be.

…

I think Female 2 is wrong here, because (from what women I know have told me) those situations have a history of escalating badly… so even if it sounded harmless — even if it was harmless — it’s the principle of the thing: Don’t be creepy. Inviting a woman to your room when you’re in an elevator with her sends off Creepy Vibes. Was it misogynistic thinking on her part (as some have suggested)? Are you kidding me? No. I don’t think Female 2 is anti-women or anti-their-rights. But if she hasn’t been in a situation where a guy made unwanted advances (perceived or otherwise) on her, I can understand why she’s questioning how scary this situation could possibly have been.

In any case, that should be the end of the story. Female 2 gets some comments on her blog which point out where she gets it wrong. Or, better yet, those who disagree with her can email her privately and have a conversation about it.

That’s what you do with people who are on your side when it comes to the big picture. You don’t have a public spat. You take them aside privately and tell them why you have a problem with what they did. Everyone wins.

But of course that’s not the end of the story.

…

6) Female 1 calls out Female 2 in front of her friends and peers at a conference.

…

This was bad form for two reasons. One, it was a distraction from an otherwise important talk. Instead of us discussing the incredibly important issue of how the Religious Right harms women (the subject of the talk), we’re all discussing whether it’s right for someone with a big megaphone to pick on someone with a smaller one, whether someone was being a “bad feminist,” and all sorts of shit that doesn’t need to be aired in public.

Two, whether it was the intention or not, you’ve convinced a young female in our movement that if she says something you don’t like, she better be ready for an all-out barrage of criticism from every “big name” in the atheist blogosphere. By opting for public humiliation instead of private criticism, who knows how many other potential atheist bloggers and podcasters and writers are now even more hesitant to voice their beliefs out loud. We should be helping them and encouraging them. If needed, we should offer constructive criticism. But tearing them down because they said something they probably shouldn’t have? Whatever happened to a learning curve? I’ve said about 3984239423 embarrassing things on this blog since starting it. If I got publicly reamed every time I did that, I probably would’ve stopped blogging a long time ago.

Could Female 2 have volleyed the criticism right back during Q&A? Why bother. The damage was already done, and the last thing I’d want to do in that situation is draw even more attention to myself. Not to mention bringing it up again would’ve only distracted people from the real issue even more. (Religious Right is harmful to women? Anybody care about that? Anybody…?)

Since then, everyone and their mother (and their angry uncle) has chimed in, taking sides… as if there were sides to this.

Maybe everyone has forgotten: We’re all on the same goddamn side. We’re supposed to be the rational ones. That means we should know how to discuss things privately before they become a public spectacle where no one wins. We should always encourage more atheists to speak up with their opinions, not shy away from it, because we’re the ones who know how to handle differences in opinion. No one’s saying “Keep quiet if you disagree.” It’s the opposite of that, only more tactful.

We’re also lucky enough that most of the leaders in our tiny movement know each other, see each other, email each other, and work with each other on a regular basis. It’s not like we can’t reach someone when we have an issue with him/her. We don’t need to “Post first and ask questions later.” You have a problem with someone in our movement? Pick up a fucking phone and call them. Send them an email. Find them on Gchat. It’s. Not. That. Difficult.

I think Female 1 and Female 2 — ah, fuck it, Rebecca Watson and Stef McGraw — are important voices in our movement. They’re leaders in their own right, and I want to hear more from both of them. More importantly, I want other people to hear more from them and change their minds accordingly. The fact that they have such wildly different perspectives ought to make us stronger as a movement.

Too bad we’re wasting our time on petty in-fighting.

A month ago, a reader named Amanda wrote a great post about why she and her husband no longer attended church.

Now, she’s back with more reasons and I suspect a lot of former Christians will sympathize with her.

I particularly love this part:

I’m currently reading Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie, and my friends would think I was losing my mind if I pulled one sentence from the novel, applied the concept to my life, and then altered my behavior to suit that concept. The Bible is the ONLY book that I know of that can have its nits picked without nitpicking the whole thing. Essentially, pastors are given license to go to town on the interpretation of individual passages while the validity of the entire book is never called into question.

That’s something I noticed during my church visits, too. Most churches are like FOX News Channel: There’s no fact-checking going on, and the person in the spotlight tends to get away saying whatever he wants because he knows no one is going to hold up a sign saying “Citation Needed.”

There ought to be a time before each sermon where someone points out all the factual errors the pastor made the week before. The only problem with that is they’d never get around to the actual sermon…