{"id":26019,"date":"2022-07-10T03:00:03","date_gmt":"2022-07-10T09:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/?p=26019"},"modified":"2022-07-06T18:14:59","modified_gmt":"2022-07-07T00:14:59","slug":"certainty-is-the-greatest-sin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2022\/07\/certainty-is-the-greatest-sin.html","title":{"rendered":"Certainty is the Greatest Sin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Religious certainty is the greatest sin.<\/p>\n

It is caused by a fear of hell and damnation.<\/p>\n

It is enabled by intellectual dishonesty.<\/p>\n

And it is killing this country.<\/p>\n

Last week I came across a Twitter thread<\/a> from someone I don\u2019t know who was trying to explain so-called \u201cpro-life\u201d people to those who are fighting to restore reproductive rights. The thread isn\u2019t long and I encourage you to read it for yourself. While I could nitpick some elements of it, all of it is directionally correct and most of it is exactly correct. Here are three key excerpts:<\/p>\n

\u201cPro-lifers\u201d genuinely believe aborting a fetus is the same as taking a knife to a toddler. They\u2019ve been that brainwashed.<\/p>\n

99% of \u201cpro-lifers\u201d are very religious, and THAT is the backbone of their beliefs. A baby is a miracle, every time, in every situation, because God knew them and placed them in your womb for care. God wanted them here. God needs them here. And how dare anyone get in the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cPro-lifers\u201d don\u2019t feel like they are pushing their personal beliefs on you. They believe their beliefs are the only beliefs. They believe their beliefs are universal. The only valid ones. The basis of all life on earth, the basis of every single person\u2019s reality.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is all true. I\u2019ve been blogging about the necessity of uncertainty in religious matters for at least a decade<\/a>. Accepting uncertainty was critical for me on my journey to exorcising the tentacles of fundamentalism<\/a> from my soul.<\/p>\n

But this thread lays bare just how harmful religious certainty is, not just to individuals, but to our society as a whole.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sins vs. crimes<\/h2>\n

I can already hear some people yelling \u201chow can certainty be worse than murder and rape?\u201d Murder and rape aren\u2019t sins \u2013 they\u2019re crimes. They\u2019re actions that actively and directly harm another person, which is why we have laws against them and why we enforce those laws with severe punishment.<\/p>\n

Sins are things that do not cause harm in and of themselves but that often lead to harm, especially if they\u2019re done in excess. My Christian friends tell me that sin is \u201cmissing the mark.\u201d While I don\u2019t like their implication that \u201cthe mark\u201d is perfection (we are flawed humans \u2013 perfection is both impossible and unnecessary) I agree that sin need not begin with ill intent. If something leads to harm, or is likely to lead to harm, then it\u2019s something to be avoided. Or at least, monitored very, very closely.<\/p>\n

Religious certainty is no crime. Believing your religion is the One True Way causes no direct harm to anyone. But beliefs lead to actions, and actions have consequences. If your beliefs cause you to treat followers of other religions as inferior, to harass them with proselytizing, or to coerce them into following your religion, that is direct harm.<\/p>\n

Make no mistake: religious certainty is a sin.<\/p>\n

The inherent uncertainty of religion<\/h2>\n

Religion is far more than what you believe. Religion is how we form and maintain relationships with our Gods, with our ancestors, with Nature, and with each other. It\u2019s what we do and how we live. These elements of religion are neither right nor wrong \u2013 they\u2019re part of who we are and part of whose we are.<\/p>\n

But in contemporary Western culture, \u201creligion\u201d is generally understood to be about what you believe: which set of supernatural propositions you affirm and which ones\u00a0 you reject. This is especially true in places like the United States where Protestantism and its doctrine of sola fide<\/em><\/a> dominates.<\/p>\n

But supernatural propositions are impossible to prove. Are there many Gods, one God, or no Gods? I\u2019m a polytheist<\/a>, but I can\u2019t prove I\u2019m right anymore than anyone else can prove I\u2019m wrong. Does life continue after death? I believe it does<\/a>, but it\u2019s impossible to say with certainty.<\/p>\n

Some religions claim historicity for mythological events, such as Noah\u2019s Ark or the resurrection of Jesus. They miss the point of the stories (which is to communicate spiritual wisdom, not to report literal facts) and they overstate the strength of the evidence for their position \u2013 while minimizing or outright denying the evidence against it.<\/p>\n

Some believe the only proper response to this inherent uncertainty is agnosticism. I believe a better approach is to dive deeply<\/a> into what we believe is most likely, but to hold those beliefs loosely. When we discover or are presented with evidence that something we believe is wrong or harmful, integrity demands that we change our beliefs.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, some religions teach otherwise.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

High stakes religion<\/h2>\n

Some religions teach that the most important thing in life is to believe the \u201cright\u201d things. They teach that believing the \u201cright\u201d supernatural propositions and rejecting the \u201cwrong\u201d supernatural propositions is the difference between spending an eternal afterlife in bliss and spending it in physical torment.<\/p>\n

And of course, the \u201cright\u201d things are whatever they happen to teach.<\/p>\n

When I was growing up, the fundamentalist Baptists taught that most Catholics were going to hell, because the Catholics believed the wrong things \u2013 even though they\u2019re Christians. At the same time, they laughed at the Church of Christ (that\u2019s these people<\/a>, not the United Church of Christ<\/a>, who are arguably the most theologically and politically liberal Protestant denomination) for believing that only their members were going to heaven.<\/p>\n

If you think that affirming the right belief is the most important thing in life, and that the stakes are quite literally your soul, then you\u2019re going to want certainty \u2013 any way you can get it.<\/p>\n

A desperate desire for certainty<\/h2>\n

The fear-driven desire for certainty causes some people to falsely claim that it\u2019s possible. I remember hearing preachers say \u201cyou can know for certain that you\u2019re saved.\u201d They rattled off a list of Bible verses about faith and hope\u2026 and then rattled off another list about people who believed the wrong things.<\/p>\n

How can you be sure you\u2019re in the first group and not the second group? Do I believe exactly the right things? Did I pray exactly the right prayer in exactly the right way? What if I have honest doubts about the whole concept of salvation and damnation?<\/p>\n

A Calvinist once told me that the fact I had those concerns even while honestly trying to be a good Christian meant that I am not among \u201cthe elect\u201d and therefore was predestined for damnation. As a Pagan I will leave the critique of Calvinism<\/a> up to Christians, but I will say that Calvinism is antithetical to the message of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels, and it\u2019s responsible for many of the problems<\/a> in the United States today.<\/p>\n

Of course, not everyone who claims to have religious certainty is a Calvinist. But anyone who believes that holding the right belief is the difference between heaven and hell \u2013 and who takes that belief seriously \u2013 is going to want to be certain they\u2019re headed to the right place.<\/p>\n

Even if they can\u2019t actually be sure.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The preacher has no clothes<\/h2>\n

So what do you do if you need to be certain but certainty isn\u2019t possible?<\/p>\n

You claim that you really are certain. Loudly. Over and over again. Repeat a lie enough times again and people start to believe it. Eventually you start to believe it.<\/p>\n

And when your leaders repeat those lies \u2013 loudly, over and over again \u2013 it affirms what you want to be true. When they say that people have believed these things for two thousand years (whether that\u2019s true or not) it affirms what you want to be true. You trust your preacher, you trust your denomination, you trust everyone and everything\u2026 except your own brain and your own heart.<\/p>\n

Early in his career, Billy Graham<\/a> had legitimate religious doubts. He decided he \u201cdidn\u2019t have a good enough mind to settle deep theological questions\u201d and accepted what he was told was true. And then he went out, night after night, and preached certainty where certainty was not possible.<\/p>\n

And everyone claimed they saw the Emperor\u2019s New Clothes, because they desperately wanted them for themselves.<\/p>\n

Some Christians say that people reject Christianity only because they want a \u201clicense to sin.\u201d In reality, those making that accusation often accept Christianity because they want certainty where certainty is not possible.<\/p>\n

Pascal\u2019s Wager is intellectually dishonest and spiritually bankrupt<\/h2>\n

Some people admit that certainty is not possible, but they argue that belief is \u201ca good bet.\u201d But Pascal\u2019s Wager<\/a> is intellectually dishonest and spiritually bankrupt.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s intellectually dishonest because it assumes there are only two options: either the Christian God exists and he is everything orthodox Christianity says he is, or there are no Gods. It ignores the possibility that there are many Gods, or that pantheism is true, or that there is one God who is not the God of orthodox Christianity. As I often tell Calvinists, if the fundamentalist Muslims are right, we\u2019re both going to hell.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s spiritually bankrupt because acting as though you believe because you\u2019re playing the odds is hardly true belief. It reinforces the false claim that certainty is possible, and the claim that what you believe is more important than how you live your life.<\/p>\n

Pascal\u2019s Wager attempts to accommodate those who realize they can\u2019t be certain while keeping them trapped in an exclusivist religion.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

An honest religion is a humble religion<\/h2>\n

In contrast, honest religion \u2013 any honest religion \u2013 accepts that while there are many things we know, there are other things we do not know, and some things we can never know. Not because our technology isn\u2019t sufficiently advanced, but because they\u2019re beyond the capacity of our brilliant but finite brains.<\/p>\n

An honest religion is upfront about its foundational assumptions<\/a>. But unlike Calvinists with their \u201cpresuppositions\u201d it acknowledges that they are assumptions and doesn\u2019t treat them as facts.<\/p>\n

An honest religion admits \u201cwe might be wrong\u201d and so it remains open to new discoveries, new experiences, and new ways of thinking. Revelation can never be sealed.<\/p>\n

And because it acknowledges it might be wrong, it treats those of other religions with dignity and respect and accepts their religion as one way among many, not as false and in need of correction. It judges all religions \u2013 including itself \u2013 by how they inspire their followers to live in peace with everyone else.<\/p>\n

Some people can\u2019t be reasoned with<\/h2>\n

There is no reasoning with someone who believes a fertilized egg is a human person with such certainty that they\u2019re willing force other people to carry a pregnancy and bear a child they don\u2019t want or that will be harmful to them.<\/p>\n

Perhaps they really do believe it. Perhaps their church tells them they have to believe it so they claim they do, doubts be damned. That philosophers, theologians, and ordinary people have struggled with the question of when life begins for as long as we\u2019ve been human doesn\u2019t register with them. They\u2019re certain they have the One True Answer, and so they feel justified in forcing their beliefs on everyone else.<\/p>\n

Their certainty is a sin. It causes no direct harm, but it inspires actions that harm others. Harm like telling a 10-year-old rape victim<\/a> that she must go through childbirth and become a mother. Harm like denying women pain-reducing medication<\/a> because it might cause an abortion.<\/p>\n

Harm like stripping the right to bodily autonomy from half the population.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

They can only be defeated<\/h2>\n

I hope this post and conversations like it will cause some thoughtful people to begin questioning what they\u2019ve been taught. I hope they begin to trust their own judgement instead of the judgement of their preachers, priests, elders, and bishops.<\/p>\n

But mainly, I hope it helps those of us who practice honest religion and who acknowledge the uncertainty of difficult issues to realize what we\u2019re up against. Our opponents aren\u2019t just people with different opinions. They\u2019re people who believe the fate of their souls depends on believing what they\u2019ve been told they have to believe, no matter how unsupportable, no matter how unlikely, no matter how harmful.<\/p>\n

They cannot be reasoned with. They can only be defeated.<\/p>\n

The rules have been changed \u2013 they can no longer be defeated in the courts with appeals to logic and reason and fundamental rights. They must be defeated at the polls, over and over again. They must be defeated with direct action, helping vulnerable people get the care they need no matter what.<\/p>\n

But more than that, their false certainty must be challenged in the court of public opinion.<\/p>\n

Because honesty demands that we do so.<\/p>\n

And because their certainty is killing this country.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Religious certainty is the greatest sin. It is caused by a fear of hell and damnation. It is enabled by intellectual dishonesty. And it is killing this country. In contrast, honest religion always admits \u201cI might be wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":26025,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[988,1185,587,4,5,4169],"class_list":["post-26019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-theology","tag-abortion","tag-calvinism","tag-fundamentalism","tag-pagan","tag-paganism","tag-reproductive-rights"],"yoast_head":"\nCertainty is the Greatest Sin<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Religious certainty is the greatest sin. It is caused by a fear of hell and damnation. It is enabled by intellectual dishonesty. And it is killing this country. 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