“Adia I do believe I failed you
Adia I know I’ve let you down
Don’t you know I tried so hard
To love you in my way
It’s easy let it go…Adia I’m empty since you left me
Trying to find a way to carry on
I search myself and everyone
To see where we went wrong‘Cause there’s no one left to fingerThere’s no one here to blame
There’s no one left to talk to, honey
And there ain’t no one to buy our innocence‘Cause we are born innocent
Believe me Adia, we are still innocent
It’s easy, we all falter
Does it matter?// — “Adia” by Sarah McLachlan
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5wW8N4pt3U[/youtube]
Ever since I’ve left Christianity, I wondered why people would consent to be Christian. Why would you say that you’re nothing, that you’re a “worm,” that you’re a sinner deserving of hellfire, and you are completely dependent on the grace of God? It seems like such an emasculating thing to believe. Why would a Christian want to believe they are worthless?
I think I’ve figured it out. And it’s something that most atheist circles don’t offer. I’m not saying they should offer it. I’m just trying to paint a map of the issue and the attraction of Christianity, the most-believed religion in the world, and figure out why it is so popular (besides, of course, the fact that many believe it through force).
Here’s the thing — we all think that we are innocent. We were born, and then life happened to us and twisted us in all kinds of complex ways to make us who we are. But we wouldn’t say that a baby was evil, right? Looking at its trajectory…it would be hard to point at one particular point and say, “the person became evil HERE.” Because when you understand the life in enough detail, you see how it got from point a to point b, and it’s logical. It makes sense. Sure, people can do evil THINGS that hurt other people; that’s different. But the person themselves? Who they are seems, at every point, to naturally fall from the things that happened — hormones, life circumstances, etc. — to that baby after they were born.
That’s why the parents of some of the worst serial killers in the world have a hard time, sometimes, believing their kid is evil; parents are often the ones to see that trajectory up close. That’s why individuals who are living their story almost invariably think, no matter how bad what they do is, that they are fundamenatlly innocent.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WEd34oW9BI[/youtube]
But there is that deep feeling of innocence, and then there is the community-constructed rule that innocent people don’t unnecessarily hurt other people in the community. Innocence is not just privately felt; it’s also culturally constructed. And when there is a picture of what an innocent person looks like that’s culturally constructed, there will be trajectories of life (however they are caused) that won’t fit into that. When the trajectory of someone’s life veers from their community’s constructed image of innocence, the resulting gap makes the person “guilty” or “evil” in the eyes of the community and creates a crisis in the individual — a tension between the individual’s feelings that, deep down, they are innocent, and the judgment from the community the individual is part of that declares they are not. The tension between these two judgments creates “guilt.”
Usually communally-constructed ideals of innocence involve a measurement of how much others (especially other individuals in the group) are harming people in the group. We care about the constructions of innocence to the extent that we care about and/or are connected to the people or group harmed or negatively affected by their violation. That’s why we can feel guilty even when, logically, we’re doing the right thing. Like, when I first left Christianity, I would feel guilty when I didn’t bow my head to pray before a meal with the rest of my Christian group, even though logically I was convinced I was doing the right thing. That is because the construction of innocence from the group was something that my own life’s trajectory veered away from; because I cared about the people in the group and “harming” them by not joining the prayer and thus disrupting their sense of community, I felt a tension between my own personal trajectory and conviction, and the image of innocence constructed by the group. That tension expressed itself in guilt.
Several years later, I no longer feel guilt because I am not as connected to this group. I don’t care quite as much about its opinion of me, and I’m connected to another often fundamentally opposed group now. My opinion didn’t change, in either circumstance. What changed was the group I connected to and, thus, the construction of innocence I prioritized. Am I still hurting religious people? To some extent, their feelings are still hurt when I don’t bow in prayer with them. But in addition to my rational decision not to bow my head, my emotional identification with atheists I want to represent and defend insulates me from guilt over my decision not to bow my head and the inferior discomfort this decision may create in Christian groups.
The fact that I can shift from one construction of innocence to another indicates to me that innocence is something that groups construct, even as it’s something that each of us, to an extent, feel we embody deep within ourselves. I know I sound a bit deterministic, and maybe I am, but I simply cannot make sense of the view that says the trajectory of an individual’s life can’t consistently be explained by that person’s psychology, biology, and environment. That’s awkward, because I’ve read that the idea that we have free will can actually get people to act better, making it a necessary fiction in some ways. But even the idea of free will seems to work as a part of largely (for lack of a better shorthand way to put it) deterministic mechanisms. Even though we hurt each other and help each other in ways that prompt us to build images of identities that are “innocent” and ones that are “evil,” we, ourselves, are all, in a manner of speaking, innocent products (at least, for the most part, as far as I can see) of our environments, our biology, our psychology, and the rest. There is no “ghost in the machine.”
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQxJi0COTBo[/youtube]
I’ll correct a possible misconception here — it might sound, to some, as if I am saying that because we are all, in a manner of speaking, innocent products of our environment, we should not condemn people or punish people for not measuring up to socially constructed ideas of what it looks like to be innocent. That is not at all what I’m saying. These socially constructed ideas of innocence are essential in making sure that individuals experience as little pain and as much pleasure in their lives as possible. They keep us alive, they allow us to thrive, and they are of extremely important practical benefit in every arena of our lives. When I say these ideals of innocence are constructed, I don’t mean that they are a game. If you don’t construct physical objects in this world, you will die, you will starve, and you will not have shelter — you and the others under your charge. The same is true if we fail to construct an ideal of innocence. Without a construction of an ideal of innocence and the pressure on a culture that comes from these constructions, people get hurt — murdered, raped, robbed, abused, etc. — and that results in real harm. So when I say they are constructed, I’m not saying they are unimportant or need to be eradicated.
What I am saying is that most people don’t measure up to these constructions. I have never met someone who I can say, with confidence, measures up to any group’s construction of innocence consistently. Hasn’t happened. Sometimes I thought I had, but it turned out I just had to get to know them better before I realized I didn’t.
So we have this constant tension between the fact that we feel, deep down, that we’re good people — that we’re people as good as we were when we were newborn, because we know our life (usually) better than just about anyone around us, so we understand who we are and why we do what we do — we have this tension between that and this ideal of innocence constructed by social groups we are part of, connected to, and care about that we simply don’t match. Even worse, these ideals of innocence are often ones that we need others to fulfill themselves so that they don’t get hurt, which further connects us to them. That tension between the innocence we feel in ourselves and the innocence as constructed by our social groups — that difference — is what often (certainly not ALWAYS, as there are notable exceptions, but often enough) translates into guilt.
Now, guilt is a useful mechanism because it keeps us upholding that ideal of innocence, and if everyone in our group feels it, that ideal acts as a barrier, a communally constructed electric fence, to keep us from hurting each other. As psychologist and behavioral economist Dan Ariely has noted (see video below), we are all hypocrites, in the sense that we all tend to cheat a little bit (or what we perceive as a little bit) when it comes to such ideals (we deny it, but it seems to be true). But as long as we don’t cheat A LOT (which guilt usually prevents in most group members), the ideal stays intact.
But because we all cheat a little bit, sooner or later we might get caught, and then the guilt starts to go into overdrive, because suddenly you are distanced from that ideal of innocence.
Let me make this practical. I’ve met people who drink and drive occasionally. They’ll talk about it like it’s no big deal. But then one day they get caught, and their guilt spikes. Why are they feeling guilty now and not then? Because they got caught, and now they are publicly seen as the opposite of that ideal of innocence that they had sought to uphold.
What happens next here is crucial. As Dan Ariely has noted, if you do wrong once and are chastened for it and then let back into the group, you are likely to recover. That works (start video at 7:42 and watch till the end for info).
[youtube]https://youtu.be/XBmJay_qdNc?t=7m42s[/youtube]
But if someone does something wrong and becomes closed off from the group that constructed the violated ideal of innocence with no hope of recourse, then they seek or construct another ideal — one that will realize them for the truly innocent person they are. And they may keep doing that formerly wrong thing, feeling less and less bad about it because they are less and less connected to the group whose ideal of innocence made them feel guilty about it in the first place.
That doesn’t mean that it helps to never close someone off from the group. After all, fear of being closed off from the group can make people still in the group more strongly cling to the group’s ideal of innocence out of fear they will be closed off, too, making that ideal stronger. So there is value in various forms of excommunication (be it prison, banning, etc.) as far as preserving the group’s constructed ideal of innocence is concerned. But if the individual kicked out has no path to be restored to the group and once again become an upholder of that ideal of innocence, then there is a strong possibility that the individual will find a group that they will be let into, one that will accept them, bad things they do and all.
It’s just the logic of human relationships. As far as I can see, that’s how it works. I mean, have you ever been kicked out of a group before? And then blocked out when you tried to join? What did you do? Maybe got depressed for awhile and then, as the years, months, or even days passed, found a group that would allow you to express yourself, right? This happens all the time. If it hasn’t happened to you, think about others it has happened to
People feel worthless, like they don’t matter to the group, after they get seen as thoroughly incompatible with the group’s constructed ideal of innocence. This feeling of worthlessness isn’t something constructed just by Christianity (although it is heightened here) — it is a common phenomenon for every group someone may be connected to, and it’s where guilt comes from. If their worth isn’t restored by the group, most people will find some other way to restore it.
Given that setup, Christianity’s staying power is simple. It sticks around because it has created a deep, thorough abyss of worthlessness and also constructed a mechanism for restoration to the group. It’s a lie, and it’s harmful in a lot of ways. But it’s not just creating a problem — it’s realizing a problem, preparing for its worst-case scenario of worthless feelings in the person experiencing worthlessness because they are an outcast, and building a way to restore the person to the group (in many cases) that brings the person out of that worthless status.
Christianity also has an extreme ideal — Christ, God, eternity, heaven, etc. You could hardly set this imaginary ideal any higher. And it has made that ideal essential to the well-being of the group — if you don’t join it, you spend eternity in hellfire.
Now, here’s the deal. Those extremes are so extreme that you don’t have to wholeheartedly believe them. What counts more is that this is a construction from a group that you are connected to, so that even if it’s factually inaccurate, the construction of the group remains. And that construction is far more epic than a lot of other ways of thinking.
Then there’s the powerful deterrent. If you don’t match up to the ideal, you’re worthless and deserve hellfire. And then there’s the powerful restoration — because the constructed ideal itself has taken that position of disgrace, worthlessness, and condemnation, and returned to become the ideal again, you can become the ideal, too, no matter how worthless your alienation from the group may feel. And any feelings of guilt you have — all the way up to the complete and thorough worthlessness you may feel — is connected to the ideal of a Christ, so that if you are separated from the ideal you can access the ideal to once again be connected to the ideal, at least in theory — no matter how separated from the ideal you feel.
It might sound like I’m trying to preach a sermon here, but I’m not. I hate the constructed ideal. It’s bullshit, and it usually hurts a hell of a lot of people. I’m just explaining why I think it works.
In a lot of atheists circles, however, I’ve seen that if you violate the guidelines of the ideal construction (whatever it is in your group) and get caught, there isn’t necessarily any recourse. There isn’t necessarily any way back. These violators, I’ve read and heard in their blogs, also frequently feel profoundly worthless. And they don’t have any way back to the group, in many atheist circles. It’s a mark that doesn’t leave. I’ve seen atheists turn back to Christianity, claiming that reason and stating those feelings of hopeless worthlessness, and I believe them. I don’t really want to name individual names at the moment (I may later), but it definitely happens.
“But,” you say, “Atheism is growing. Christianity is losing. So we don’t need to pay attention to this supposed ‘advantage.’”
Yes, atheism’s big advantage is that it’s telling the truth. But at the same time, a lot of nonreligious people are becoming religious. Let me explain.
According to the latest Pew Research Poll in 2015, 2 out of 10 people raised in religious homes in the United States will likely become nonreligious. So yes, truth has a way of breaking through in this computer age, and a lot of the bullshit rules are being exposed. But the other news is that 3.5-4 out of 10 people raised in nonreligious homes will likely become religious. The reason it looks like we’re winning now is partly because there are just so many more religious people, so that their 20% is much higher in number than our 40%. In addition, the world is becoming more religious, overall, where there is less access to information. Atheism has a definite advantage in that we are actually right, yes. For many, it has an emotional advantage as well. But the fact that religions spreads like wildfire where there are large numbers of poor people and/or less access to information indicates that Christianity seems to have an advantage when it comes purely to satisfying (or appearing to satisfy) emotional needs without a regard for truth. And it seems that this space Christianity has made for feelings of worthlessness, and the road back it has paved from guilt, in most sects, is a major part of this advantage.
If you violate the constructed ideal in Christianity, there is a clear recourse and restoration process that’s worked into the system and thus keeps people in, raising the retention rate much higher than it would otherwise be. This is not the case in much of atheism — if you violate a constructed ideal in an atheist group, there doesn’t seem to be a recourse that’s nearly as connected to the “system.”
Should there be a way back for atheists who have not lived up to community-constructed ideals of innocence, just as there is in Christianity? I don’t know. There is an argument to be made that this might be letting the fox back in the henhouse to harm people, as we see in Catholic priests who are moved from parish to parish to molest young boys. There is also an argument to be made that these outcasts simply make their own communities (cf. the increasing influence of the anti-SJW movement in opposition to the SJW movement in organized atheism, as one example my audience is likely familiar with) in which they stop being outcasts and attempt to flip the tables, which can also negatively impact the prominence of certain ideals of innocence and, by extension, hurt the people these ideals were built to protect.
It’s a tough place. And I don’t have the answer. Really. For the most part, I’ve been on the side that has been firmly against letting people disgraced in organized atheism back in, because I don’t trust people easily and I don’t want to see people get hurt (and sometimes they don’t want to come back, anyway). I still am likely more on that side of being more cautious. But at the same time, this stance comes with the understanding that Christians, who often have a clear way back for many of their disgraced, have an advantage here.
This understanding has also gotten me to rethink the strategy of referring to the subservience Christians often feel as a way to try to convince them to leave Christ. Yes, the downside to this subservience, this feeling that you deserve hellfire and would get it if it were not for the grace of Christ, is that it allows people to be controlled like puppets in deeply disturbing ways that continue to make me angry. However, I’ve come to realize that one of the reasons this religion is so stubborn in people’s minds is not in spite of that hellhole, but BECAUSE of it, as it acts as a deterrent from leaving the constructed ideal of Christ that it also validates — an ideal that includes or encompasses the hellhole and thus rinses away the person’s guilt and restores them to the group.
It’s a bit like the reason I’ve read people become addicted to drinking — often it’s not just the drinking itself, so much as it’s the thrill of how drinking causes you to veer away from an moral ideals and then come back to the group that constructed those ideals upon becoming sober, or even while drunk. That thrill of realizing that the deep innocence you feel in yourself has found a secure home in a community, even when it does not match up with the externally constructed ideal. In Christian theology, the ideal of Christ contains the fact that you veered away from it. It’s still there when you mess up, because Jesus died (and is thus at) the place your “sins” are. The conscienceless people take advantage of this, yes, but most people actually have consciences and feel a strong sense of connection to the ideal because of this mechanism.
Again, I don’t know how we can use this knowledge to make atheism “win” even more effectively. One thing Neil Carter seems to propose is that we should encourage Christians to have more human-based relationships with people who accept them. I support this. I’m also wondering if we can work on being more accepting, but that’s dangerous territory, because if you accept people under the wrong circumstances people will get hurt in horrifying ways. So I don’t have the answer, yet.
I’ve been thinking about it. But in the meanwhile, what I’ve put here just seems to be an explanation for how Christianity has grown to be such a strong ideology around the world, and also for how it is an ideology that seems constructed to fight and outlast other ideologies and overcome them (especially when the communities holding these ideologies don’t have access to facts). I don’t have all the answers on what to do with this reality (if I did, there might be a lot fewer Christians in the world), but it seems that in our future fights it would help to take it into consideration.
Thanks for reading.
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