September 19, 1999



 Religion is not just a matter of personal preference. Rather, it is an argument over facts. The big question is what happened at certain moments in the past and what is the state of the world now. Thus, it is a combination of historical and scientific questions. (Quote Laplace and Napoleon here: it is such a useful hypothesis.) 



Thus, people either will be raised from the dead, or they will not. People are reincarnated as  dogs, or not. Only one way or the other can be true. And what is true is not a matter for personal choice. All a person can choose is what he believes-- if, indeed, he can choose that. For he can only choose what to believe about an afterlife in the same sense as he can choose to believe whether the sun goes around the earth or vice versa. Depending on the arguments one hears,  one may really  have no choice but to believe that the sun goes around the earth-- or vice versa. 



 This is contrary to much modern belief. People like to think that religious belief is up to a person's choice, and that  Smith can believe people are raised from the dead and Jones  can believe they are not, and that  we cannot say one of them is right and one of them is wrong. People think about religious freedom, and conclude wrongly that if a nation has religious freedom it must mean that all religions are equally correct.  They even are coming to believe that this is true of science also, which, indeed, is the logical extension of the idea. If some people can believe in an afterlife and others can equally validly believe that death is a complete end to a person, then  some people can believe that the sun goes around the earth and some can equally validly believe the opposite. We see this in the way the creationism debate has turned.  It is claimed that whether the earth is 6000 or 6 billion years old is a matter of personal choice. 



 The modern confusion of tolerance with equal correctness of belief was predicted and lamented by  those who argued against religious neutrality of the state. If the state does not make a choice and say that one religion is correct,  common people think that it must mean that no religion is very important and all are equally false.  Or, if the state is careful to exclude religious beliefs altogether, it is not really being neutral-- it is saying that religion is false, and that the facts it asserts are to be excluded from public discussion. That is  the  current state of U.S. judicial belief,  and the creationism-in-schools debate shows it very clearly, as does the hostility towards any legislation motivated by religious beliefs.  The modern state is not really neutral when it excludes religious beliefs such as the earth being 6000 years old, the existence of an afterlife,  the reincarnation of humans as dogs, and so forth. Each of these three things is a statement of fact whose truth or falsity has consequences for public action  and private behavior. 



 But that is digression from my first point that religion is a statement about facts, not just an expression of personal preference.   The next step is to distinguish two kinds of facts, the  scientific and the historical.  All religions make what I here call scientific statements-- statements about how the supernatural affects the natural world. Christianity says that God created the world and planned out what is now happening, whether He is acting directly now or using secondary causes. Paganism says that if a person takes a tabu action the gods will shortly punish him. Materialism says that if there is a supernatural world, it has no impact on the natural world. 



  Religions differ in whether historical facts are important to them. A pagan religion may have no history to it at all, and simply be a system of scientific belief. Thus, a tribe may believe that certain actions are tabu and will be punished by the gods without having any explanation of how they came to be tabu or what the gods have done in the past. They may have some memory of   direct evidence  for their beliefs-- that something bad happened to an uncle who broke a tabu--  and that would make the religion historical if it were an essential part of it, but it is also quite possible to have the belief without the history. In this, it is akin to much  of science, which  relies on current experimentation or observation but not on  any particular past event.  



   Less primitive religions usually have a historical component, but often it is not central. Hinduism does not rely on Krishna really having driven Arjuna's chariot in battle or Rama having recruited a monkey army. Its dogma would survive unaltered if these were proved never to have happened. This is true of creation stories generally. Judaism and Christianity would not be essentially altered if  it were discovered that God created the world in seven years instead of seven days. The creationism debate rages not because any central  Christian doctrine depends on taking Genesis 1 literally except  for the instrumental  doctrine that one ought to read the entire  Bible literally. For that doctrine,  the accuracy of the boring genealogies in  I Chronicles is  just as  crucial, but no other Christian doctrine stands or falls with it. 



   Sometimes, however,  historical facts are indeed central. That is the case with Judaism, Christianity, and Mormonism.  Judaism collapses if Moses did not receive the Law from God. Christianity collapses if Christ did not rise. Mormonism collapses if Joseph Smith did not receive golden tablets from an angel.   To be sure, some people like to pretend they do not,  and that, for example, one can have Judaism even if Moses did not exist, but that is to misuse the name "Judaism". A religion could still exist  and people could call it Judaism, but it would not be the same religion, any more than    the heliocentric system of astrononomy could be truthfully  relabelled as the Geocentric  System (Reformed). Moses is crucial, even if the seven days of creation are not. Without Moses, the Law loses its divine origin, and without the Law, Judaism remains no longer. 



 (A qualification: this does not mean that Orthodox Judaism is the only variety that can be called Judaism. Someone could believe in Moses, but also believe that large parts of the Law were   applicable only in Palestine at that time.  This would still be the same belief system, to my mind, even though the practical implications for daily behavior are far different.)



 Christianity is one such religion. Either the historical facts in the Gospels are essentially true or they are not.  If they are not, then Christianity must be abandoned except perhaps  for  the cynical instrumental purpose  of keeping people happy and well-behaved. If they are, then each of us ought to  take that into account in how we live our lives. 



    The central fact in dispute is whether Jesus rose from the dead. Whether his mother was named Mary or Ruth; whether he was born in Bethlehem, Nazareth, or  Gaza;  whether he  was thirty years old or sixty are not really important.  The gospels, Paul's letters,  and the other letters in the New Testament all attest to the importance of the Resurrection, though, and Christian theology is built on that base. It is also convenient for present purposes because the Resurrection is miraculous.



 Miracles are  a stumbling block for some people in believing in Christianity. It is puzzling however, as to why this should be so.  The Resurrection is a one-time event of huge significance.  It took place in the first century rather than earlier or later for specific reasons, and the Bible does not lead us to expect frequent reappearances of Jesus in subsequent centuries. Thus, the fact that we do not see miracles in most centuries has no bearing on whether the Resurrection took place, or, indeed, on whether other miracles took place at that time. One cannot say that to believe in the Resurrection is unscientific  any more than one can say that to believe in Halley's Comet is unscientific because it has failed to appear in the past few years. 



 At most, one can say that to  believe in the Resurrection is unscientific because the historical evidence is too weak. We do not believe the fantastical stories of Herodotus because his book is the only evidence for them and they do not fit with the rest of what we know about the world. In the same way, it might be that the Gospels and other evidence  are insufficient  grounds for believing in the Resurrection.  Writers make mistakes, and even lie. The Gospel writers clearly claim eyewitness knowledge and intend to be taken literally, so it is implausible to say that they are  mistaken, but they might well be lying to support their new religion. That is a reasonable position, even though I do not agree with it. It is something that can be argued about,  like any historical fact. Belief in the Resurrection is  in this way  like belief in Caesar's  victories in Gaul, it is a conclusion based on limited and possibly biased documentation.  The difference is that the Resurrection is far more important, and hence far more controversial. 



   The limited amount of evidence available is important in explaining why controversy still exists. How is it that we, as a society,  are so uncertain  on religious matters? We are fairly united in our scientific and historical beliefs generally, but not on religion. Why, if religion is  matter of facts?



 First, our unity on science and history is largely illusory. Most people are entirely ignorant of both. They rely on the consensus of experts and automatically agree with them. This is because for most people, their own belief in  science and history are irrelevant. Whatever I believe about electricity, my toaster will still  work.  Whatever I believe happened at  the Constitutional Convention, the courts will still interpret the Constitution as they please and I must abide by their laws. 



 Where beliefs start to matter, disagreement begins. Medicine is the best example. People agree generally with modern science, but when they get sick, they resort to quack medicines with amazing speed. 



 Educated opinion, however, is far more united in science and history than in religion. Why?  Part of it may be that belief  usually does not   matter for the educated, either.  The exact value of the gravitational constant is not something on which I am likely to have a biased view.   I do not care whether Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo in 1814 or 1815 and am willing to abide by the evidence. 



 When it comes to religious facts, however, we are much more prejudiced. If I believe in the Resurrection, I will have to live differently than if I do not. I will have to give up my favorite vice, and that makes me look at everything twice, three times, seventy-seven times. 



    To say that selfish   bias is the only reason for disputes in religion, however,  would be very wrong. The evidence is genuinely unclear, and that is the most important reason.  Moreover, Christianity itself suggests that the evidence is unclear; indeed, that  the lack of convincing evidence is no accident. For whatever reason, God has chosen to prevent the evidence from being convincing-- He has given us enough to be able to believe, but not enough to have to believe in Him. 



 Why He should do that is unknown. It is part of the Question of Evil-- if God could save everybody and prevent all pain, why does He not do so? But that God has made purposely obscured the evidence is plain.  (Quotes here from the BIble.) Going further, this  on explanation for   the lack of modern 

 miracles.  God does not want to be obvious. If He intervenes in modern events, we should expect *not* to be able to detect it. (It should be apparent that I don't believe the claims of Lourdes or the Pentacostalists-- for these  theological as well as the more usual evidentiary reasons.) God has made Himself a moving target, and it is impossible to catch the Omnipotent unless He wants you to. 

   

 Thus, we have an explanation for belief and disbelief in Christianity. God has provided evidence, but not so amply as to convince everyone, particularly since most of us have some degree of bias against being convinced. To some people He has provided the leap of faith, but He has made such a leap necessary. We should not expect either to hear  of discoveries of  ancient manuscripts   confirming the Gospel or of manuscripts disproving the Gospel either.