Absolute belief is often lauded as a sterling value, especially in some religious groups. Once you have made your decision (i.e. to believe) don't revisit it, so the admonition goes (while deciding not to believe calls for more persuasion). I experienced this with JWs and Mormons. No matter what, stick to your choice to join (never mind about former commitments or alliances, apparently, only this one - to them).

Absolutism was rampant in my youth, as obedience was a frontline value of my father's (being raised that way himself and you tend to repeat your own lessons). I don't know if it is in my nature to lean that way or if it was drilled into me or likely some of both. To this day I can't rid myself of wanting to know where the lines are, outside of which I shouldn't draw or walk or jump or go. I fight it though, the big difference from earlier searching years.

Colouring inside the lines, walking along the groomed path, adopting and repeating the party line, seeking out others who are "like-minded". These expectations and the willingness to accept and acquiesce work well in stringent faiths such as Mormonism and, in my own experience, the JWs. The WatchTower Society (WTS/JW) is looking for "lost sheep". Shepherds lead, sheep follow - and don't ask questions. Imagine my dismay when, finally, explaining all I needed to know, the "don't ask questions" refrain finally emerged with the Mormons. No wonder their emphasis is on leap first (into the baptismal font), ask questions later - except the latter is not really gonna happen. As time passes I feel more and more surprise and dismay that I went along with that. And then witnessed it with other "investigators" who came after me. Obedience good. Questions bad.

Little kids ask a lot of questions. They have the right instinct. Too many adults try to squelch that useful tendency. The Bible says to be as little children (although with a different connotation). Except for the questioning part, according to faith groups where leaders stress submission and silence.

I was fortunate to have reference points outside both groups. Experiences and relationships that called me back. From personal experience I knew that people and things weren't the way that some church leaders portrayed them. The JWs who tried to keep me away from my family. The Mormons who preached about the highest heaven where nobody I knew was headed because they weren't on the Mormon ladder to the celestial kingdom. The belief that the world was headed for destruction and only JWs would survive (because they were the only good, obedient humans). The emphasis on the greatest virtues of obedience and trust and squelching the questions. From my own experience I knew that the way both groups portrayed life wasn't reality. I was fortunate in that. It helped me get out. Both times. (A little late - too bad it didn't stop me from getting in).

I'm fascinated now with identifying the trigger/s that help people see the light, so to speak. What loosens a black/white doctrine's grip on a person's mind? It seems reasonable to assume that it's harder for those born into a rigid faith group because they soak up the doctrines from babyhood. But too, once adults make a major choice, such as changing faiths or joining a more fundamentalist one, it can be nearly impossible for their mind to remain open. At some point you may quit evaluating incoming information and just settle into your chosen beliefs. In fact, that is somewhat encouraged in general - at some stage in life we have to decide what our core values are, right? If we mingle basic values with our religious beliefs (or lack thereof) then it can be even harder to re-evaluate our ideas.

I was lucky that I had a good relationship with my non-JW family. I could measure what was taught by the group against my own experiences. When I wanted to leave Quebec (where I had gone to be a JW missionary) due to a serious accident my Dad had had and knowing my mom and younger sibs needed me, a JW friend said "They're not your family now, we are". A chill ran over me, waking me up. I knew that wasn't true. I knew where I should be. Of course, returning home led to me eventually leaving the JWs, which is just what they feared, which reinforces their rigidity in teaching and practice - keep adherents isolated. To me, if outside influences are going to interrupt or change your beliefs, so be it. Isolating adherents is not a good look for a faith group. I guess it works for some of them though, sadly.

Where is the happy medium, though, of formulating one's value system, leading to conclusions and opinions for life, which is useful, and getting so "set in one's ways" that a mind never changes, despite new incoming information of value?

There is currently a measles outbreak in my area, affecting three schools, confirmed to be due to numerous parents choosing to keep their children unvaccinated, and also some teachers not being vaccinated either. A public health physician recently stated to the parents: "I realize that your reasons are complex but now is a good time to revisit your decision."

I thought that was a very good neutral (non-judgemental) way to try and reason with people who obviously hold very strong opinions about a hot-button issue.

Time to revisit your decision. What a concept. One that is not encouraged within many faith groups. Rather, once you've decided (for them) "the thinking has been done", as the prophet (in)famously said. If you decide against them then you're wrong or worse, sinful and/or doomed, and should re-examine, so they say. So very - concrete - The opposite of reason and enlightenment.

Brian Stelter, Journalist, in a recent article quotes from a scene in “the Broadway production of ‘Network’”:

“Here is the truth,” Bryan Cranston’s character Howard Beale says in a monologue. “The real truth, the thing we must be most afraid of is the destructive power of absolute beliefs – that we can know anything conclusively, absolutely, whether we are compelled to it by anger, fear, righteousness, injustice, indignation.”

“As soon as you have ossified that belief,” he adds, “as soon as you start believing in the absolute, you stop believing in human beings, as mad and tragic as they are… in all their complexity, their otherness, their intractable reality…The only commitment any of us can have is to other people.”

---

The destructive power of absolute beliefs - check.

Ossified belief - check.


I'm familiar with both conditions. I'm so happy that absolutism never took 100% hold of me.

I've referred recently to cemented ideas but I really like the term ossified. Good descriptor of how it is for all too many followers.

What's tragic, to me, is that many of the leaders turn out not to be victims of ossification themselves. Rather they use people's absolutism, a condition encouraged by the doctrine, to keep them down when the leaders in reality know the truth, the truth that they're peddling fool's gold. I can never wrap my head around the fact that they would do that for a big car and a fancy condo. Really? What a petty little life that is.

Despite the odds, there are fixes for ossification. Light can loosen a few little grey cells to start with...

Here's hoping the light shines in all the places it can do the most good.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2019 04:44PM by Nightingale.

Very well done, Nightingale!!

This isn't just a post, it is an essay--and the insights here are universally applicable to any religion, or religious culture, which depends upon belief.

(One of the important turning points in my life, something I eventually realized [it took awhile! ;)] after reading many posts here on RfM, is that a critical divide exists between "belief" religions and non-"belief" religions--and that the category word "religion" does not adequately encompass both.)

Regardless of the specific "belief" religion under discussion, you have written an important essay here, and your words contain the potential to help many throughout their individual life journeys, as they contend with the clash of denominational principles versus lived truth.

Tevai,

Can you suggest a distinction between religious and secular "belief?" I don't think it is possible.

In fact, I don't think one can define religion in a way that includes the full range of religions--from theistic ones to atheistic ones like Buddhism--without simultaneously bringing political ideologies into the tent.

The way forward, I think, is to recognize religion as an epistemology rather than a body of doctrine. Does an ideology require belief in propositions that are not proved? If so, then that element of the ideology is religious--even though advocates may style themselves materialistic and empirical.

There are two advantage to the epistemological approach: it encompasses all religions; and it coincidentally enables us to understand why people in various totalitarian movements evince religious fervor and destructiveness. Otherwise one ends up in an egocentric world in which "my" family of faiths is religion but everyone else's is something else, and "my" political philosophy is rational but everyone else's is logically invalid.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Tevai,
>
> Can you suggest a distinction between religious
> and secular "belief?" I don't think it is
> possible.

What I was trying to say is that actual "belief" in certain "facts," "biographies," ostensibly past "events," "commandments," "prohibitions," ways of living, etc. is not necessarily an essential part of certain (cultural?) systems which we commonly term "religions"....

....and that this reality is in distinction with those systems we commonly term "religions" in which "belief" IS (ostensibly) an essential component.

I remember growing up, reading my friends' Catholic catechism instructional books, and sitting in Baptist, Congregational, and Lutheran churches during services and learning events of various kinds such as Sunday School, and thinking: "C'mon, you [adults] don't REALLY believe that, do you?" of the adults around me, because what I was hearing was plainly not factual, or truth, to me. I did learn to keep my mouth shut, while my eyes and ears were fully open, because I was hearing things that didn't appear to me to be factual (but nevertheless, I was aware that the adults around me knew facts I didn't, so I was willing to accept that maybe my instincts were wrong).

At the same time, in the other parts of my life, I could hear stories of Ganesha (the little boy with the elephant's head), who ran around the world by balancing on the back of his pet mouse/rat, doing all kinds of good things for those who requested them, and accept (today: with an adult's ability to understand) that this was "true" in a metaphorical sense.

Jews do this all the time, with the Passover story (slavery in Egypt, followed by the parting of the Red Sea, followed by the forty years in the desert wandering around) probably being the best example. Passover is incredibly important in Judaism, but it is a metaphor, possibly based on some wispy and miscellaneous events that MIGHT have (in some small part) happened, but as the founding myth of the Jewish people, most Jews either actively don't believe it ever really happened (as the story is told in the Bible), or they choose to not think about it all that much (even if they attend Passover dinners every year where the story is retold, virtually bite-by-bite of various, special to Passover, foods).

In indigenous religions, "belief" is often [at minimum] not a necessary part of the cultural process, but observing that group's "religious services" ARE necessary (probably about half-and-half for the benefit of the overall tribe involved, and the benefit of the individual doing the "worshipping"). You do the ceremonies (whether group, or by family, or individually) your tribe observes, and you do them with honest commitment, but that doesn't necessarily mean you "believe" in them, even as you sincerely observe the rituals.

Think of Native American religions: There is a space between "believing in" [let's say] Spider Grandmother, or [Native American] Spider Woman, and BELIEVING in Spider Grandmother (etc.). In other words: BELIEF is not necessary to "belief"--so a Native American (or a South African) academic in science can sincerely observe the religious rituals of their respective tribes, without actually BELIEVING in the [scientifically factual] existence of the deity they are respectfully, ritually, devotedly, worshipping.


> In fact, I don't think one can define religion in
> a way that includes the full range of
> religions--from theistic ones to atheistic ones
> like Buddhism--without simultaneously bringing
> political ideologies into the tent.

I don't understand the general introduction of politics here. In contemporary Hinduism, the current problem with right-wing Hindu nationalism is certainly a gigantic problem, as are (for most of the world's religions, at this point in history) issues related to female subordination both culturally and legally, slavery in many areas (Islam is certainly involved here), and so on--but although these would be categorized as "political" problems, I think they all go considerably beyond "politics" in their seriousness, both domestically and internationally. Within Judaism, Israel has become a difficult "political" problem for all Jews, but this has nothing to do with, for example, believing (religiously) that the critical issues in the Old Testament are based on factual events.


> The way forward, I think, is to recognize religion
> as an epistemology rather than a body of doctrine.

Exactly (I think). Many religions (Judaism, Hinduism, and indigenous religions around the world) are NOT a "body of doctrine," but are, instead, bodies of "knowledge" (which can involve metaphor, including metaphor at an extremely high level--where physics and "religious" thought meet).


> Does an ideology require belief in propositions
> that are not proved? If so, then that element of
> the ideology is religious--even though advocates
> may style themselves materialistic and empirical.

I think I agree with this statement. ;)

My statement would be: Not all "religions" are "religious" in this sense. Outside of Christianity, Islam, and Zoroastrianism, there are "religious groups" where, explicitly or implicitly, belief is N-O-T "required" (nor does "belief" exist for a significant percentage of those IN those "groups," probably most especially those who are the most learned). I invite input from anyone here who is aware of "religions" OUTSIDE OF Christianity, Islam, and Zoroastrianism, where "belief" is required, because I (personally) don't know of any.


> There are two advantage to the epistemological
> approach: it encompasses all religions; and it
> coincidentally enables us to understand why people
> in various totalitarian movements evince religious
> fervor and destructiveness. Otherwise one ends up
> in an egocentric world in which "my" family of
> faiths is religion but everyone else's is
> something else, and "my" political philosophy is
> rational but everyone else's is logically invalid.

I am not in disagreement with you here (unless I am not understanding something well enough to realize what I don't know what I am talking about).


[EDITED TO ADD: Zoroastrianism, to the sentence which includes Christianity and Islam.]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2019 10:50PM by Tevai.

We are addressing related but different points. Your point, as I understand it, is that a large proportion of any faith do not literally believe the dogma. They either choose to interpret things metaphorically or simply participate in the community and traditional activities of the religion for communal and traditional reasons. I agree fully.

The point I was raising was that customary Western definitions of religion generally stem from analysis of Western religions--meaning the Judeao-Christian-Islamic family. Attempts to squeeze atheistic religions like the Indian faiths, Confucianism, Taoism and some forms of pantheism or animism generally fail because their is no God at the center of the picture.

But if you redefine religion broadly enough to encompass those non-Western traditions, you end up with a definition that includes extreme political philosophies, most forms of nationalism, etc. That is an outcome that political philosophers dislike because they, like the Marxists and Hitler, want to view themselves as eminently rational and superior to the merely religious.

In effect, I hijacked your thread and your point, with which (I think) I agree.

Very interesting and insightful post, Nightingale. I am struggling with the ossified beliefs of my TBM family and their inability to see or even think of other viewpoints.

I think emotions can become ossified too. Although my belief in the church wasn't ossified and I always fought to color outside the lines, my emotions became locked in a pattern of extremes. I was either happy or not, depressed or not, angry/frustrated or not- black and white responses that were reinforced by the church and my family.

With therapy and the willingness to dive deep into myself, I have been learning to express emotions in new ways that open up conversations with others rather than them being overwhelmed by the intensity. By teasing out the subtle emotions, I am gaining a better understanding of the damage the church and my TBM family has done and I'm in a better position to heal.