5th November 2024
A few days ago, I started reading Tolstoy’s Teaching of Christ Narrated for Children and despite my profound love for anything involving ethics, I couldn’t get past the fiftieth page (even though the book has only 80 pages). Of course, it isn’t a book about ethics per se, but a huge part of religion is about how we should live our lives (the question of ethics). The obstacle to my understanding of the book is quite evident: Christianity. And as I reflected on what I read, I felt the urge to write clearly what makes me so utterly frustrated when I debate with Christians (but also Muslims).
The principles, values, virtues and commandments preached by Christians are so difficult to grasp because they are based on a whole theological apparatus that is beyond my reach. For instance, every three lines of Tolstoy’s book, obscure notions – God, the soul and its immortality – are evoked and form the basis of all the ideas put forward. This is not a problem in itself, but it becomes one from the moment when the initial dogmas are too metaphysically heavy – for they imply postulating the existence of quite a few entities. That God exists, it is fine. But that God is good, that is too much. That there exists in us something immaterial, it is fine. But that it is immortal, that is too much. The problem is these two things are central, because ethical commandments are always linked to a certain conception of happiness, and in the case of Christianity (but not only), this happiness corresponds to the salvation of the soul. It is too hard to understand – and as much for non-believers as for believers.
I always end up disappointed by my debates with believers regarding their dogmas because they do one of the two following things. 1) Either they do not understand anything about their religion and are satisfied with the sentence "it is God who knows everything, there are things that will always be beyond us" – and I would like to know how the hell they adhere to their own religion when they themselves admit that they do not understand it. 2) Or they understand its internal logic, but it is based on dogmas that they have only acquired through "faith". And do not misunderstand me: faith is not something as obscure as people claim. I myself have faith when I say that I want to do good and avoid evil. But it leads us again to the question of the ontological cost of our presuppositions: on the one hand, we postulate the existence of good and evil; on the other hand, we also postulate the existence of a benevolent powerful God that can be concerned about us (instead of being indifferent to us), of a prophet who spoke the truth against all others, of an immortal entity in us who will be judged at the death of our body, etc. Anyhow, it's too complicated, and it always blocks me when I talk to believers. I admire their concern for good (although it is often tinged with enormous selfishness, aka saving one's soul), but I have not had a single debate where my arguments have been taken seriously, instead of being swept away by dogmas. Perhaps I am too demanding…
(Fun fact: while searching for the English title of the book I read, I stumbled across Tolstoy’s Wikipedia and discovered he was vegan... Surely a heart as big as his had some space for animals.)
The principles, values, virtues and commandments preached by Christians are so difficult to grasp because they are based on a whole theological apparatus that is beyond my reach. For instance, every three lines of Tolstoy’s book, obscure notions – God, the soul and its immortality – are evoked and form the basis of all the ideas put forward. This is not a problem in itself, but it becomes one from the moment when the initial dogmas are too metaphysically heavy – for they imply postulating the existence of quite a few entities. That God exists, it is fine. But that God is good, that is too much. That there exists in us something immaterial, it is fine. But that it is immortal, that is too much. The problem is these two things are central, because ethical commandments are always linked to a certain conception of happiness, and in the case of Christianity (but not only), this happiness corresponds to the salvation of the soul. It is too hard to understand – and as much for non-believers as for believers.
I always end up disappointed by my debates with believers regarding their dogmas because they do one of the two following things. 1) Either they do not understand anything about their religion and are satisfied with the sentence "it is God who knows everything, there are things that will always be beyond us" – and I would like to know how the hell they adhere to their own religion when they themselves admit that they do not understand it. 2) Or they understand its internal logic, but it is based on dogmas that they have only acquired through "faith". And do not misunderstand me: faith is not something as obscure as people claim. I myself have faith when I say that I want to do good and avoid evil. But it leads us again to the question of the ontological cost of our presuppositions: on the one hand, we postulate the existence of good and evil; on the other hand, we also postulate the existence of a benevolent powerful God that can be concerned about us (instead of being indifferent to us), of a prophet who spoke the truth against all others, of an immortal entity in us who will be judged at the death of our body, etc. Anyhow, it's too complicated, and it always blocks me when I talk to believers. I admire their concern for good (although it is often tinged with enormous selfishness, aka saving one's soul), but I have not had a single debate where my arguments have been taken seriously, instead of being swept away by dogmas. Perhaps I am too demanding…
(Fun fact: while searching for the English title of the book I read, I stumbled across Tolstoy’s Wikipedia and discovered he was vegan... Surely a heart as big as his had some space for animals.)