Religion for Rationalists

At Less Online, I ran a well-attended session titled "Religion for Rationalists" to help me work out how I could write a post (this one!) about one of my more controversial beliefs without getting downvoted to hell. Let's see how I do!

My thesis is that most people, including the overwhelmingly atheist and non-religious rationalist crowd, would be better off if they actively participated in an organized religion.

My argument is roughly that religions uniquely provide a source of meaning, community, and life guidance not available elsewhere, and to the extent anything that doesn't consider itself a religion provides these, it's because it's imitating the package of things that makes something a religion. Not participating in a religion is obviously fine, but I think it leaves people missing out on a straightforward way they can make their lives better.

The session was a lot more peaceful than you might expect. I think it helped that my religion is Zen Buddhism, which is a lot less offensive to rationalist sensibilities than, say, Evangelical Christianity. And just to be clear, because many Western "Buddists" are not clearly religious (they're more Buddhist philosophy enjoyers and meditation dabblers), I am: I meet with my sangha in person twice a week, I engage in ritual practices like chanting, bowing, and making offerings to altars, and I have taken the Bodhisattva precepts and been ordained with the dharma name "Seidoh", meaning "sincere way".

But I didn't start out that way. Ten years ago I was committedly areligious. I've talk a little bit about what changed elsewhere, but in summary I realized that practicing Buddhism would probably be good for me, the tradition within Buddhism that called to me was Zen, and once I started practicing I quickly realized that Zen, at least as it exists in the West, is quite different from what I expected a religion to be. I'm still an atheist; I still don't believe in the supernatural; and I'm still committed to honestly seeking truth. Zen has asked me to make no compromises on my core values in ways that the me of 10 or even 20 years ago would not, upon reflection, endorse.

But not all religions are created equal. I didn't end up practicing Zen entirely by accident. In fact, I made a bit of a search to find traditions which might help me live my life better (and to be clear the rationalist tradition was inadequate in this regard!), and although I found Zen to be the right fit for me, I found a couple other traditions—all religions—that seemed similarly beneficial if I had been shaped to fit into them.

First up there are obviously other traditions of Buddhism. All the ones that seem potentially beneficial for rationalist-like people are forms of Western convert Buddhism, meaning traditions that are now largely made up of Westerners who converted to Buddhism as adults. You can find these across all three of the major branches of Buddhism, and you can generally use your good sense to sniff out which might be good. If a group seems to demand you believe impossible things about supernatural beings or make extreme, cult-like commitments you aren't willing to make, then stay away (though note that your cult-detection abilities are likely too sensitive and you need to think carefully if normal and safe religious expression is triggering a false positive).

Another option is Quakerism, specifically folks who call themselves the Society of Friends (this gets confusing because most modern Quakers are part of Evangelical denominations that descended from the original Quakers and have similar sounding names like Friends United Meeting). Their practice ("worship") is defined by unplanned services of sitting in silence with someone occasionally talking if they are "moved by the Spirit" to do so. But there's no preaching and no religious authority other than personal experience of "God", which can be understood however metaphorically you want. I know several rationalists who have found the Quaker community supporting, and they don't see it as conflicting with their rationality.

The final option I'll mention is Reform Judaism. This one's a bit weird as it's not really for you unless you want to go through the rather complex process of converting, but it's more an option for people who were raised Jewish or have Jewish ancestry and thus are already considered Jews. The benefit of Reform Judaism is that it's liberal and most rabbis are, from what I can tell, basically fine with you being an atheist and not taking everything literally. And from what I can tell, there's a decent number of observantly Jewish rationalists, and most of those who I've asked about it have been members of Reform temples.

Unitarian Universalism and humanist churches perhaps deserve an honorable mention, but these seem to be poor choices. They ask for too little commitment to be effective religions, and are more like religion for people who grew up Christian, left the church, and now want something of church back in their lives without all the false beliefs. If that's you, great, but from what I can tell these groups struggle with both attendance and offering useful life advice.

Of course you're free to ignore my advice on this. I would have for a long time. It took until I had gone far enough trying to live a full life to realize what I was missing and to be able to acknowledge that the missing thing was religion. I would have rejected the notion that I needed to be religious. I also would have been wrong, but then I've been wrong about a lot of things in my life. Maybe I still am.

Now, to a couple questions folks asked me.

A popular one was some version of "why not start a new religion?" My answer is because most new religions fail, either turning into cults or simply fizzling out. Religions also work, to some extent, because they can lean on tradition. I think you are better off getting involved with an existing religion than trying to create a new one. If you really want to start a religion, instead join an existing one, practice it diligently, and then if you rise to a position of authority, you might use that authority to enact some useful reforms, assuming you have understood what makes the religion work so that you don't reform it towards dissolution.

I also got asked about how I feel about religions and truth seeking. My answer is that you shouldn't think of religions as being about the truth as rationalists typically think of it because religions are doing something orthogonal. I understand why this might be confusing, though, because Christianity and Islam, the world's two biggest religions, explicitly co-opt rational truth in most of their forms, calling their practitioners "believers" because they are expected to believe certain things. But to throw out religion because most religions you've encountered have this bad property is a mistake.

You can find religions you can practice without being asked to give up your honest search for truth with no need to even pretend to have already written the bottom line. I've suggested a few options above. There are likely others. It's my honest belief that nearly everyone would be better off if they practiced a religion, and there's enough religious diversity that almost everyone will find their fit if they look with an open heart and mind.

Cross-posted to Less Wrong, where there may be more discussion.