Religions are largely cultures, and the key part of each such culture is to agree upon the childish fantastical fairytales to which that culture is going to pay lip service. That’s why the extremist segments of each religion, where they actually start acting like the fairytales are true, are often secretly laughed at even by their own religion. They don’t laugh out loud of course, because they have to pretend to believe.
If you get right down to it, atheists cannot possibly prove (whether scientifically or even philosophically) that God does not exist. Therefore, they must take the non-existence of God as an article of faith.
And faith is what you use when proof does not exist. A geologist does not need to have faith in the existence of a particular stone, when he is holding it in his hand. A blind man does not need to have faith that the sun exists, when he can feel its warmth on his face.
Much evidence that gods do not exist, and no real evidence that he does. Good enough for me to think about things other than gods.
Do you believe that a baby named Kal-El got rocketed here from the doomed planet Krypton, and nowadays leaps tall buildings in a single bound as a grown man who dresses like a circus performer and has telescopic x-ray vision?
Do you believe that Walter Mondale was elected President Of These United States back in the 1980s, and is still alive and well and serving in that office today?
Do you believe that, a decade after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, those cities got atomic bombed again? And then, a decade later, again?
Do you believe the Tooth Fairy exists? Mermaids? Leprechauns?
In fact, by the teachings of the Catholic church, at least some Catholic rites can be validly performed by atheists. Baptism, for instance, requires a sincere intent to baptize, water, and words to the effect of “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit”. If all three of those elements are present, then it’s a valid baptism. (It probably wouldn’t be a licit baptism: Even though anyone at all can do it, it’s supposed to be done by a priest, if at all possible. But it’s valid, and could even be licit in extreme circumstances.)
Geez, we’re doing this one again? It only seems like a few minutes since we last kicked this one to the kerb and here it is again. It is an unstoppable tide of dreck.
I really need to just have the standard post saved somewhere, to cut and paste. I’m also pretty sure I’ve said that before but I never seem to get around to doing it.
The new Chief Chaplain is an ordained Secular Humanist Rabbi, right? IIUC, Judaism does not actually require a belief in deity, so why not have a rabbi who does not believe in deity? When this story broke, I was curious why he was called “an ordained Secular Humanist Rabbi”, so I did some quick 'net searching. Turns out he’s not the only one, and his training does not seem to be that much different than the training “religious” rabbis receive before they are ordained.
I don’t know much about school Chaplains but at least in the U.S. military a Chaplain’s job is first and foremost to provide spiritual guidance to anyone in their charge who needs it–regardless of the person’s religious creed or lack of religious belief. So foundational to the role is sort of a generic “spiritual guidance” responsibility. If for example you’re a fundamentalist Christian pastor in your private life, and become a reserve Chaplain with the Army Reserves, and say you will not provide any guidance to anyone who isn’t a fundamentalist Protestant, you would be removed from service.
Now in addition to fulfilling a generic role of spiritual guidance, Chaplain’s generally are also religious teachers/authorities/pastors from a specific religion, too. For example it’s not uncommon for Protestant Chaplains to be some sort of pastor in their civilian life, maybe not a full time pastor as their military responsibilities might take up too much time, but they’ve gone to seminary etc. There are also Chaplains who are ordained Catholic priests and religious figures/leaders/et al. from all manner of other faiths as long as the faith is registered with the DoD. The U.S. military doesn’t currently, to my knowledge, allow atheist Chaplains, but the Chaplaincy role is not primarily tied to a specific faith.
There will be lots of servicemembers who belong to small minority religions. At a big base stateside, there may be access to a chaplain who is specifically a practicing member of that faith. However on deployments especially to remove areas, that is much less likely to be the case. However at some small base in Afghanistan (before the withdrawals), a Protestant chaplain would 100% be expected to provide moral guidance and spiritual counseling to a Sikh or Muslim. There are actually a lot of controversies about the military chaplain system, and some implementation problems (lots of Protestants Chaplains only pay vague lip service to their duties, and many have been called out for using their Chaplaincy to proselytize to the non-believers etc.)
No, I strongly disagree. Atheists are not following a faith. They are the people who are following the available evidence and forming a conclusion that best fits that evidence.
Personally, I see a significant difference between a religion and a philosophy.
A philosophical system, to me, is a set of beliefs that stands or fails on its own internal merits. If somebody explains the tenets of stoicism, for example, you can look at the whole of the philosophy and decide if you wish to live by its principles.
Religions, on the other hand, are based on a foundation of external factors that require faith. Christianity, for example, is based on the belief that there is an omnipotent omniscient deity who created the universe and humanity and is observing and judging our behavior in this life in order to determine how we will be treating in an eternal afterlife. None of these premises are backed up by evidence; you have to accept them on faith. Then if you do accept these premises on faith, being a Christian becomes the rational response to the things you believe in.
But a different person can be exposed to a different set of premises they are asked to have faith in without any evidence and if they have faith in those premises, then being a devout Muslim or Buddhist or Scientologist is the rational response to their beliefs.
So philosophies are belief systems that do not require faith and religions are belief systems that do require faith.
I agree with everything you said. I just think the role of a chaplain with a shared philosophical alignment has more use than he/she aligns with my complete lack of interest in things of that nature. While I’m probably close to a humanist in actions, it’s not something that I seek out in others or even think about. I’d probably never consider needing a chaplain as I’d find a therapist if I was dealing with mental stress of some sort. If I happened to be an atheist UU or humanist or transcendentalist or something else similar, I could see seeking out a church leader, chaplain, or similar.
Why exactly does Harvard need 40 fellow campus chaplains? Do students turn into toads if they leave campus to attend services at churches, temples or mosques in the Boston area?
From the linked article:
“When the pandemic hit I was like, ‘Greg, do you have time to talk about the meaning of life,’” (a student) recalled. “He showed me that it’s possible to find community outside a traditional religious context, that you can have the value-add religion has provided for centuries, which is that it’s there when things seem chaotic.”
See, young people are still Spiritual, just in the Value-Added sense.
Nah, they’ll be too busy having fun mocking Harvard. Brick-shitting will commence when the U.S. military names an atheist to coordinate spiritual activities for the troops.
My understanding is that most of these chaplains are clergy who conduct services off campus as you describe. They visit the campus on an unpaid volunteer basis to meet with students.
I agree that some atheists do this, but I would not at all say that this is true of all of them. What you describing is a rationalist approach to the God question, but not all atheists are rationalists.
Atheists can even be spiritual: they believe in the supernatural but not any god per se. All atheism means is believing there is no god. That’s it. There’s no other philosophical attachment.
As for your claim about the difference between philosophies and religions? I would argue that, at their core, all philosophies also depend on things external. And that, ultimately, relying on faith is itself a philosophy, one that says that faith can be a foundation, rather than knowledge or wisdom.
I’d argue the difference between philosophy and religion has more to do with how it affects someone’s life. Well, that plus the common usage where “religion” implies a belief that involves the supernatural.
I would say that, for example, empiricism is a philosophy. Rationalism would be a religion, except that we don’t like to consider entirely secular beliefs to be religions. So I’d instead just call it a belief system. But empiricism cannot be a belief system.