Buddhists are bad enough, George. But now we’re all Quakers…

"Why should any man have power over any other man's faith, seeing Christ Himself is the author of it?" - George Fox

So, my other friend also has a theory. Basically we’re all Quakers 

Apparently one of the central doctrines of Quakerism is the ‘priesthood of all believers’, whereby the traditional clergy is disavowed and the direct experience of god is emphasised. While actually depending on when, where and which set of Quakers you are talking about, the denomination’s famed tolerance dissenting belief is sufficient that it can accommodate a non-theist component without too much trouble. My friend’s argument is that the belief in a more-or-less undefined ‘something’, resistance to doctrine, emphasis on ‘social gospel’, a sense of opposition to the established mainstream churches and a nuanced or even critical approach to the interpretation of biblical texts and history characterise not just Quakers. The idea is that there's also a large component of people who aren’t especially religious in the traditional sense but who nonetheless might describe themselves as ‘christian’. The British Humanist Association obviously think so too, considering their census campaign which urges that, “If you are not religious, for God’s sake say so”. I think there’s some mileage in their argument - that if people tick ‘Christian’ out of a sense of habit or familial loyalty, the census is compromised in terms of its ability to reflect social attitudes. Recent census figures, discussed in an earlier post, tend to back them up when one compares them with 2001 data. 

And that’s not even counting the Jedi Knights. 

I’ve emphasised before that the point of view of this blog is that the way individuals relate to and practise their beliefs is more interesting than debating the cultural, historical, philosophical or institutional baggage of the religions those individuals identify with. However, the differences among those forms of baggage and between them as well as the personal experience of religion is an interesting topic in itself. I was raised around a form of Tibetan Buddhism, and while it’s inaccurate to say I am Buddhist, or that I was raised as a Buddhist, it is the religion that I’ve had the most opportunity to observe up close in terms of its practice and its adherents here in the West. Thus, when discussing the history versus the ideas versus the perception of a religious institutions, the extremely good press that Buddhism has with people who are normally very critical when it comes to religious institutions comes is impossible to ignore. The journalist Micheal Parenti provides a helpfully referenced antidote to what he sees as the woefully under-informed idealisation of Tibetan Buddhism in particular and historical revisionism rampant in wide-eyed, western followers and fellow-travellers. The charge sheet includes a litany that will be familiar in the context of religion-bashing but not normally associated with Buddhism – terrorism,  religious violence and wars, shady dealings with the CIA and other naughty people, pogroms, institutionalised child abuse as well as  theologically-sanctioned feudalism, indentured servitude, theft, torture, rape and a notable lack of compassion for the common serf. Gladly, Parenti acknowledges the dangers associated with a recent wish to downgrade the ‘goody’ status of Tibetans as a side-effect of the well-intentioned wish to compensate for the knee-jerk characterisation of China as a yellow peril ‘baddy’. Obviously, both peoples and the organisations associated with them are more complex – the point is that the devil is in the details and the niave idealisation or demonization of huge swathes of humanity does nobody justice. 

Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

-James 2:17 - The Bible, New King James Version

I can’t help but wonder what a similar reading of the history, institutions, personages and doctrines of atheism – insomuch as they might be considered representative of your common garden atheist – might look like? One the one hand you might have the Galilean martyr of truth, embattled with a blind and brutal church. On the other, you might have the short-sighted nuclear scientist or the suspect eugenicist. Or even just the controversy-courting soldier of the culture wars. Given that the arena I am most motivated to fly my atheist flag is politics, it probably isn’t surprising that I share the Bright Network’s concern that people should see that atheists can be positively engaged in ‘matters of civic importance’. To some extent, I agree with Richard Dawkins that it might send a powerful message for atheists in prominent and respected positions to ‘out’ themselves and show that we aren’t all so bad – even electable.

 

I suppose that the best end to this post is the starting point of this blog – individuals are more complex and interesting than any generalising lens could account for. It’s not the club you belong to, but how and who you are.  

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