Religion and Beliefs

I recently had a discussion with several of my good friends that affected me in an interesting way. Before I discuss it, however, it is necessary to provide a little background information about my religious and spiritual beliefs prior to the conversation.

While I was raised Jewish and followed this religion a fair extent growing up—I went to Sunday school, celebrated Shabbat and the high holidays, and had a Bar Mitzvah—I do not consider myself to be very religious. I want to make a distinction between Judaism as a religion and Judaism as a community. I feel closely connected to my Jewish community, from my family and friends to my heritage that has struggled as a people against adversity for thousands of years. It is the specific views and beliefs of Judaism that I speak of as not being particularly close to (or at least not actively so). It is not a disagreement that has caused this disconnection. Rather, it is mainly a lack of knowledge. When I studied Judaism, I was too young to really understand the principals of the religion and apply them to my life, and I have rarely studied any other religion. Therefore, I don’t have strong religious ties with Judaism or any other religion at this time.

Over time, I developed into something of an agnostic and came to regard aspects of religion—specifically Christianity, as it is the dominant religion in the United States—with some disdain. I thought of religion, or at least mainstream religion, as an easy way out for people who didn’t want to answers life’s tough questions on their own. At times, I’ve thought that certain aspects of religion monontenize and even brainwash people into believing and following someone else’s goals and ideals. For this reason, I was furious when I thought that religion affected political issues. Abortion, same-sex marriages, and the teaching of evolution and/or intelligent design come to mind as issues that are heavily influenced by religion. I was angry following the 2004 election, when religious voters may have tipped the election into George Bush’s favor largely because of the issues listed above. I was equally upset when the state of California recently voted for Proposition 8 and banned same-sex marriage in California’s Constitution.

It was with these views that I engaged in a discussion with several of my good friends on a pleasant summer night while, fittingly, sitting on the roof of a church. We were talking about the theory of evolution, as compared to other theories of creation, and a disagreement came up. I argued that while there is certainly room for some sort of “god” in any argument, it was wrong for someone to not believe in the general theory of evolution. I pointed to the years of conclusive evidence backing evolution to back up my point; I had just finished reading Guns, Germs and Steel, an extraordinary book which tracks the evolutionary history of humans and their effect on modern plants and animals to the current day, so the topic was fresh in my mind. I argued that to completely disregard the overwhelming evidence was a to adopt a mindset that doesn’t believe in science. If this mindset was widespread, I continued, it would generally threaten the community and well being of the human race and perhaps even our ability to collectively deal with major natural issues, such as global warming.

Several of my friends challenged me. Although they believed in evolution themselves, they stated that they thought it was legitimate for someone to not believe in evolution and instead argue for god or sheer stupidity in the matter. My friends argued that evolution has never been conclusively proven, asking me ‘what in your own sensorial life experiences has proven to you without a doubt that evolution happened?’ I angrily responded several times to this with different variations of “but every scientist argues for evolution” or “it’s just common sense”, but I eventually came to understand their point. Besides, they argued, the human race makes discoveries and increases its knowledge at an amazing pace, and there has been many times in the past when the dominant belief has been proven wrong.

Their arguments caused me to do something that, while seemingly simple, I hadn’t done for a long time: step back from my own views and consider why I believed the things that I do. Doing this made me realize that while I looked down upon people with strong religious views because I believed that they were stuck in their views and held them against what I perceived as “common knowledge” or “good will”, I was just as stubborn in my anti-religious beliefs. In other words, I exemplified some of the same negative characteristics that I attributed to very religious people, namely an inability to listen to other people’s beliefs and truly consider them.

The takeaway point from this conversation for me wasn’t that I shouldn’t believe strongly in evolution, that I shouldn’t try to convince other people to do so as well, or even that I shouldn’t continue to have some anti-organized religion beliefs. It was simply that it is important to always be aware of the root of your beliefs and try to understand where other people are coming from. This is important for several reasons. For one, it is only by truly listening to other people’s beliefs, no matter how different they may be from your own, that you can seek to find common ground and understanding. Also, by stepping back from your beliefs, analyzing their causes, and comparing them to other beliefs, you strengthen you own beliefs and gain a greater understanding of their origins. Following the conversation, I realized that my beliefs concerning religion are heavily influenced by my childhood. I grew up in a liberal environment where most people aren’t very religious, believe in evolution, support gay-rights, and are pro-choice. To illustrate the way this may have affected me, I think there is a good chance that I would believe in intelligent design if my parents did so as well.

I think that many of the problems in the world today are caused by a lack of understanding of and respect for other people’s beliefs. Considering that upbringing and childhood is probably the largest determinant in what a person believes, and the extreme variety of backgrounds and experiences of each person, the clashing of beliefs is an inherent and unavoidable issue. However, this issue doesn’t have to be something negative. In fact, it is an area of great potential good for the human race; it is, after all, largely through the exchange of ideas and beliefs that our collective knowledge increases. With this in mind, being cognizant of the origin of my beliefs, and respectful and open to the beliefs of others, is something that I will attempt to improve on and a goal that we should all strive for.