Deep Belief Religion

Introduction

“I beeleeave, Hallelujah! I believe with all my heart and soul!”

Deep Belief Religion is all about faith. Faith is the root of the premise, as in: “You have to have faith to believe, son. Once you do, God will open up to you. But he won't until you have made that leap of faith.”

The problem here is that faith in this context means suspending the belief that harsh reality can be explained simply by observing it carefully. If you have faith, “It's that way because God made it that way”, becomes the ultimate answer to everything! Careful observation is not for those with faith, but rather, it is for scientists.

The bright side of Deep Belief Religion is enthusiasm and serenity. The dark side is blind spot thinking and goat sacrificing.

Searching for answers

The heart of any religion is searching for answers. The big question is where to find them. When a person makes the leap of faith, and makes faith the core of their searching, they will find themselves on the road to delusion. Delusion starts when “from-the-heart” thinking (in this context, “I prayed and God answered.”) over rides the experience harsh reality is presenting to the person. But that's not the end of the problem. Being a believer also means being part of a group. (Remember, this is Chosen People thinking.) Being part of the group means buying into someone else - some other person -- telling the believer what their faith actually means. If you resist that, exile is the common solution to disputes.

Although that other person will usually cite a religious text, the deep believer is accepting that other person's interpretation of the religious text. The interpretation is, in more prosaic words, an opinion. That opinion will be divinely inspired, of course, but it is still another human's opinion.

Furthermore, when the religion is lead by a charismatic leader, the leader pays a lot of attention to what fires up his or her followers. The leaders are in the business of articulating and sustaining a dynamic message that appeals to the values of their followers. Two examples: Rick Warren emphasizes “a purpose driven life” which puts him in harmony with people who like motivational themes. This theme is popular enough to make his Saddleback Church the eighth largest in the US. On the other hand, Billy Graham in the 1950’s and 60’s appealed to people to “accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior”. He was also on the forefront of bringing racial integration into worship. This integration theme made him popular not only with a lot of progressive Americans but also with several US Presidents: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.

So the answers provided by Deep Belief Religion are a mix of from-the-heart beliefs of leaders and their followers. Note that observing harsh reality dispassionately is not high on either side’s answer-providing list. When harsh reality is not a high priority, it is easy for blind spot thinking to sneak in and cause a lot of delusion and waste.

The Ultimate Answer

In Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the ultimate answer to Life, the Universe and Everything is “42”. In the world of Deep Belief it is, “God made it that way.” In both cases the answer is short and sweet, but does not provide much insight into why harsh reality happens the way it does.

An example of the mental gymnastics a Deep Belief Religionist has to go through to accommodate harsh reality is written about in this 23 Nov 13 Economist article, “All About Adam,” which describes some contemporary debates that have Young Earth Creationism at the core. From the article, “Recent research (notably cross-species comparisons of gene sequences rendered non-functional by mutations) has greatly strengthened the case that humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor. A creationist speaker in Baltimore shrugged such discoveries off, declaring that ‘science changes, but the word of God never changes.’” This creationist speaker demonstrates no capacity or consideration when it comes to meshing belief with harsh reality.

The article goes on with further controversy, which has “been triggered by findings from the genome that modern humans, in their genetic diversity, cannot be descended from a single pair of individuals. Rather, there were at least several thousand “first humans”. That challenges the historical existence of Adam and Eve and has sparked a crisis of conscience among evangelical Christians persuaded by genetic science.” Michael Cromartie, an evangelical expert at the Ethics and Public Policy Centre, a Washington think-tank, says, “[M]any conservative theologians hold that without a historical Adam, whose sin descended directly to all humanity, there would be no reason for Jesus to come to Earth to redeem man’s Fall.”

The Goat Sacrificing

With an inherent disconnect from harsh reality, goat sacrificing is easily supported, and it can be quite varied. It is as varied as both leaders’ and followers’ delusions are.

Here are some examples of the reasons used to support contemporary Deep Belief goat sacrificing.

“God is angry.” This is an enduring reason for goat sacrificing. As the book introduction points out, this dates to Ancient Roman times, and much further. A modern day example occurs each time some preacher says that a contemporary natural disaster is caused by God's anger at some group over their actions on a contemporary social issue. Televangelist Pat Robertson’s tirade on “gay days” at Disneyworld is a classic example: “I would warn Orlando that you're right in the way of some serious hurricanes, and I don't think I'd be waving those flags in God's face if I were you. This is not a message of hate - this is a message of redemption. But a condition like this will bring about the destruction of your nation. It'll bring about terrorist bombs; it'll bring earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor.” The waste here is that it's a pat answer for all social problems seen by the Deep Believers. And it's an answer that supports status quo.
This kind of goat sacrificing rejects new ways of acting or thinking that can bring lasting relief.
“God made it that way.” This is the ultimate answer to everything. The waste here is that it doesn't promote progress in understanding. This kind of goat sacrificing stifles advancements which can benefit human kind. If the answer is always “God made it that way”, why keep asking new and different questions? A historic example: Vaccines and antibiotics are not going to be invented if the answer to “Why do humans get sick?” is always “God made it that way.”
“Only God can make it that way.” This is the heart of Creationism in its various forms. It's the idea that humans are too complex for an evolutionary process to create. The waste here is, once again, not supporting asking deeper questions. In this case, goat sacrificing denies revolutionary solutions that make our lives much better. A historic example of solutions that have vastly improved our lives is the discovery of DNA. Its discovery was a direct result of the implications of heredity - there had to be something that was carrying inherited traits from parents to children. Many of the breakthroughs in modern health care come from an ever increasing understanding of DNA. Heredity was rejected by Creationists soon after Darwin published The Origin of Species because of its tight link to evolution, which threatened the concept of humans being something only God could create.

Conclusion

Deep Belief Religion is deeply comforting at the “from-your-heart” level. It provides the answers that people want to hear and are used to hearing. It is comforting, but it doesn't offer much support to carefully observing the harsh realities around us and through that trying to learn how to do things better. The biggest goat being sacrificed by Deep Belief Religion is the lack of progress in understanding our physical world.